




1. 



ERNARD (ARPENTER^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LIBER AMORIS 



LIBER AMORIS 



BEING THE 



BOOK OF LOVE OF BROTHER AURELIUS 



BY 



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HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER 

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1 mi son un che quando 
Amore spira noto, ed a quel modo 
Che detta dentro vo significando. 



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BOSTON 
TICK NOR AND COMPANY 

1887 



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Copyright, 1886, 
By Henry Bernard Carpenter. 



^J # rights reserved. 



^Intijersttg 19rcss: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



" Behold the Book of Love" said then the seer; 
" Take it and hold it warm within thy robe 
Near thy hearfsptdses. On its leaves each day 
Great Love's invisible finger creeping soft 
And slow, as with a su?ibea?n shall inscribe 
All things whatever in his name thoti doest. 
For whatsoever through Lovers eye we see, 
Or through Love's ear we hear, or in Lovers heart 
Conceive or purpose, whether in thought or act, — 
Endures and is imperishable and true, 
Growing within us toward that greater self, 
Which lives and is eteimal as the heavens. 
All else is but the shadow of a shade, 
A s7noke when the fire dies, a thing of nought. 
Baseless and blind as a poor idiofs drea7n. 
Know, therefore, that whatever in ptire Love 
Thou doest is straightway writ within this book. 
Look to V. For when Love comes, He opens this, 
Andfro?n this reads to every soul its doom." 



CONTENTS. 

♦ 

Page 

Wind-Song 11 

Part One 21 

Moon-Song 65 

Part Two 73 

Star-Song 199 

Part Three 211 

Dawn-Song 277 

Part Pour 285 

Eeferenda 314 



WIND-SONG. 



LIBER AM0R1S. 



WIND-SONG. 

From wintry realms where the wizard Sleep 
Folds his dream-flocks by the dawnless deep ; 
From the frost-flowered meadows 
Whence trooping like shadows 
At their father's call they southward creep ; 
From the caves of the North 

Mid the Night's dominions, 
I come tempesting forth 

On mine ice-ribbed pinions, 
And the snows are my robe, and the frost is my crown, 
and the clouds are my minions. 

With my clarion winds the sea is whirled, 

And churned like milk, or in mist-wreaths curled ; 

Where thought never wandered 

I spread my storm-standard, 



12 LIBER AMORIS. 

Unquivering my blasts on the groaning world* 
And when I low-breathe 

My wind-voices choral, 
I draw from their sheath 

In hues bright and floral 
My star-blinding beams and my tlmnderless flashes of 
falchions auroral. 

The hoar-lipped sea to my sword's white scar 
Writhes upward and gnaws his prison bar, 
Till spent with his plunging 
He sleeps in his dungeon, 
Laid low with my winds and weary of war. 
Then I ply my swift scourge, 

And his face pale and ashen 
From verge to dim verge 

Wears a God's form and fashion ; 
As peace that mounts into pain, and pain into Love's 
purer passion. ^ 

Men trace to their cradles and beds of birth 
My three brother winds that walk the earth. 

The West from quick Ocean 

Draws mind and motion ; 



LIBER AMORIS. 13 

The East whets his tongue with sharp Alpine mirth ; 
The South leaves his home 
In spiced undulation, 
And the ships shear the foam 

Round his kingdom and nation ; 
But none ever dare to lay bare the cold lair of my dark 
generation. 

For my cradle is laid on the frost's white throne ; 
J T is a sea of glass, where the God unknown, 
Unveiling his terror, 
Breathes close to the mirror, 
And straight I come forth, but never alone ; 
But with shapes of strange fear, 

And shadows pursuing, 
With hopes of sad cheer 

That wail their undoing, — 
Dark-mantled in death, girt with moans of remorse, and 
- wide-winged with black ruin. 

And I bring Earth-Mother unnumbered ills 
In my steel-blue chain that cuts and kills, 

When my cruel weather 

Draws tight in its tether 



14 LIBER AMORIS. 

Her veins that flow thro' the hearts of the hills ; 
And I quell the last songs 

Which the wood-minstrels taught her, 
And the gifts which by throngs 

Gold autumn kings brought her, 
Till she waits, as one chidden, my bidding, and sinks as 
a lamb at the slaughter. 

And her body's grace lies dead and bare 
With rending of raiment and ruin of hair, 
And her autumn's rich fancies 
Are steeped in death-trances, 
Nor beauty, nor motion, nor voice is there. 
Down streamlet and wood 

Fails her faint pulse's quiver, 
And back sinks her blood, 

Without dream of endeavor, 

Through her fingers and frost-fettered feet and her 

sealed lids that slumber for ever. 

At her seeming life my sword thrusts keen, 
Till the Form turns pale and gaunt and lean ; 

But wherever I enter, 

I drive to its centre 



LIBER AM ORIS. 15 

And strengthen and kindle the Soul unseen. 
When I crush the bright grape, 

Of the wine I am keeper ; 
When I hide the loved shape, 

'T is that Love may lie deeper ; 
What my death-sickle reaps, it bears hence to be gar- 
nered as gold for the weeper. 

When I ruin beneath, I open above 
Clear fields where man in his thought may rove. 
There my north-stars burning 
Pay back with their yearning 
His centuries' gaze of longing and love. 
There I scale my sky-towers, 
And rend with my paean 
November's cloud-powers 
Lead-sceptred, lethsean, 
And I shed the star-shine from its shrine down the 
stairs of my pure empyrean. 

By the drooping hearth fire winter-proof 
Men sit and hear on the shuddering roof 

My foot-fall's thunder, 

And then they wonder, 



16 LIBER AM ORIS. 

Weaving warm thoughts through the flame's red woof, 
What my wind-spirit saith 

Through nights in December, 
When the brand with loose breath 
I unrobe and dismember, 
Or when, as a tree sheds its leaves, I toss the last 
showers of each ember. 

Then I bring a voice for those lofty moods 
Which come as the speech of solitudes, 
When memories assemble 
Or dim hopes tremble, 
And a speechless pain on the spirit broods. 
As a song-robe wrought 

By a hand in lute-playing, 
Which clothes a sweet thought 
Beyond our speech straying ; 
So I draw forth the secrets of sorrow and clothe them 
in many a dark saying. 

Yea, I am the voice of those iron Gods 
Whom Darkness rears in the North's abodes, 

Whose strength is in sorrow, 

Who build for to-morrow, 



LIBER AM ORIS. 17 

And lay for the Fates their predestined roads. 
Through niy tones hoarse and stern 

Beats a heart that is tender, 
And my death-phantoms burn 
Into angels of splendor, 
Black-robed by old Night, but bright with the might of 
the stars that attend her. 

I, the Lord of the hosts of all clouds set free, 
I, the symbol and voice of eternity, — 
Ere my voyage is ended 
And I have descended, 
Through surging salt mists, on the midland sea, — 
From this high convent-tower, 

My midnight mansion, 
Will touch Night's black flower 
Into starry expansion, 
As a winter-dark chestnut, spring-smitten, ascends into 
star-flowers branching. 

Now southward my frozen terrors burn 

Through these rust-brown val]ej r s of bleak Auvergne, 

And I pause, as I chant them 

My many-toned anthem 

2 



18 LIBER AMORIS. 

In keys oft varied ; for now I yearn, 
Like a mother's voice lost 

In a child-soothing ditty, 
Now I shout like a host 

That slays without pity, 
Till the warder aghast peers down from the crown of 
this storm-shaken city : 

Where an old man's fancy weaves and unweaves 
A pale thin bower of memory's leaves, 
As I lull with low dirges 
His heart's faint surges, 
Till they heave as light as a child's heart heaves, 
And through seas of calm Sleep 

Which mists now encumber, 
His dreams, as they creep, 

Furl their sails bright and sombre, 
Whilst I with my finger of silence unbind the light 
seal of his slumber. 



PART ONE. 



Sleep, Sleep, sweet Sleep, father of Life and Death, 
Thy twin-born children ; source and end of all ; 
Heaven's porter, who with bright smooth key of gold 
Warm from the breast of God's dumb daughter Peace, 
Openest through darkness for world- wearied man 
A door to fields of light and starry streams, 
Where he may greet his dead whom he deems lost, 
And in one minute taste eternity ; — 
Sweet Sleep, dear easeful nurse of toil and woe, 
Who gatherest all thy children, one by one, 
Whether in earth or sky or soundless sea 
In thy warm folds of painless lullabies, 
And layest them soft upon the knees of God, 



22 LIBER AMORIS. 

Yet comest never near God's hands or eves, 

For God, He only, slumbers not, nor sleeps ; 

Dear Sleep, upon whose heart, the home of dreams, 

Life wakes and wonders, weeps and sinks to rest ; — 

Pass from me now and leave me as thou wilt, 

Short are thy visits to an old man's eyes 

Even such as mine, that wake and watch the dark 

Long ere these ears can bless the bird of dawn. 

Ay, leave me as thou wilt, but leave not those 

My brethren, breathers of the pale pure peace 

And cloistered stillness of these abbey walls ; 

Where every cell that holds the slumberer now 

Is as a bridal bower of quiet bliss, 

And the hushed vow T that sank in sudden sleep, 

Soaring again, finds on the topmost stair 

Of supplication trances turned to truth, 

And wins in dreams the wished shrine of Love. 

And, since pure wishes are as strong as prayers 
And often more avail, bringing a boon, 



LIBER AMORIS. 23 

So leave not, Sleep, those clustered homes below, 
That seem to rise like a slow-climbing prayer 
Toward one high thought, — this peaceful citadel, 
Their central spirit and overshadowing shield. 
Scatter thy dews of health on each cold hearth 
And the tired hand that soon must wake its fires, 
On the sad heart self-exiled, on the soul 
That lives alone ; still with thy starlit smile 
Spread thy soft fingers, dipped in spells of night, 
O'er smokeless housetops, mute unanswering doors, 
And shadowy streets, that lie within the unbound 
And breathless girdle of their walls and towers. 

Peace be on all, but most of all on thee, 
My brother Basil, seated by me here, 
Feeding the watchfires of this winter hearth, 
And the low lamp of my fast-fading thoughts 
With all thy nameless numberless arts of love, 
In listening look and speech-inviting smile 
And glance more eloquent than most men's words. 



24 LIBER AMORIS. 

Peace, Peace ! So soft a word must surely win 

Its prayer, and fill with peace the breather's lips. 

Such prayer now rises visiting the seat 

Of Him, the Father-Priest of all his worlds, 

Prom me, Aurelius, abbot of this house, — 

While now the storm-spent north-wind bows his head 

Before a hushing hand, and slow there comes 

A trance of silence on the midnight sky, 

Strewn with unruddered wrecks of cloud that ride 

In anguish o'er the unnavigable air. 

For never have I known, since I was monk, 

A watch so dark and terrible as this. 

With what wild clamor the career of night 

Wheeled in mid course round the black turning-point 

And shouted onward for the morning's goal. 

What wrath was in the tempest. How yon hills 

Quailed at his coming, when his trumpet-blast 

Of resurrection shrouded their brown ribs 

With shreds of snowy flesh. How he roared by 

With titan step and breath of boreal song 



LIBER AMOEIS. 25 

To the Balearic isles, where the south sea 

Fled from the mower, as with swift scythe-sweep 

He sheared its blown and bowing meadow of waves. 

Sayest that I slumbered ? When my senses drooped, 
Then was I most awake. The Soul within 
Enfolded with the curtains of light sleep 
Still kept her power of audience, and I heard 
Voices like those that wait upon our life 
Nearing its mortal passage. Oh that I 
Could tell thee all the sounds that came and went, 
When the rough north-wind opened every stop 
And the stored thunder stormed his thousand pipes ! 
What memories of his own dark northern land 
Then came ; what lamentations and farewells, 
Tones of despair, entreaties, cries of Love 
In fruitless vigil by the sepulchre, 
What thoughts that ask unanswerable things 
And still stand begging at Life's door, what dooms 
Dark as the last unreadable decree 



26 LIBER AMORIS. 

Straight from the court of Death, what coming feet 
Down Griefs long-closed forgotten corridors. 
And here and there sweet cadences of sound 
Sighed, Come away; then died and rose again 
In whispers, Come away ; and yet once more 
The words returned, as in a litany, 
With slow reiteration, Come away. 

Sit near me, Basil, lay thy hand in mine, 
That hand, the faithful herald of thy heart, 
That heart, which to my spirit's every touch 
Has rung true answers through these twoscore years. 
For thou wert once an instrument wherefrom 
I drew sweet pastime in thine earlier days, 
When first I taught thee, and with fostering thought 
Wooed step by step thy half-born thoughts to light. 
But now the plaything is become a prop 
On which to stay my death-descending steps. 
As we have seen some shepherd of our hills 
Go forth with carols to the rising sun, 



LIBER AMORIS. 27 

Tossing his pastoral rod with un tired hand ; 

But when the vesper-bell slow rings him home, 

That day-worn shepherd leans upon the staff, 

And stooping sunward from his lofty rock 

Surveys his one world's dear familiar face, 

Old sunset hills and valleys dipped in shade. 

Even such a staff, Basil, art thou to me, 

Now lingering on the borders of the night 

That calls me homeward. Leaning on thee thus, 

Would I look back, and, summoning one by one 

My wandering thoughts, would fold them in green 

rest, 
A slow-returning, silver-fleeced flock 
Of pasturing fancies fresh with sorrow's dew, — 
Thus gazing down long valleys lost in mist 
Would I raise up, albeit with wildered sense, 
One thought which once was king of many more, 
A vision lost beneath a visioned earth, 
A dream within a dream, a trance of tears. 



28 LIBER AMORIS. 

See, Basil, see within this fire before us 
The gate of beauty to my land of dreams, 
Opening its heart of hospitable warmth 
To greet us. Once it might have seemed to me 
The still sad glow of autumn's yellow woods, 
The ruins of a sunset, the rich grave 
Where daylight smiles most beautiful in death. 
To suchlike shapings from the forge of thought 
My firstborn poet-fancies might have come 
In the more vacant moods when I was young 
And sought the luxury of half -tasted grief. 
These things have been. But Sorrow since has come 
Near me. Her gorgeous shadow in which I dreamed 
Has grown into a substance in myself, 
Her apparitions wear an actual shape, 
And I am now the thing which then I saw. 
The fire is now a fire, and through its path 
I see three figures walking, like the three 
Whom crowned Chaldrea with his baffled eyes 
Saw walking scatheless through the sevenfold flame ; 



LIBER AMORIS. 29 

The first in black, the second in sad grey, 

The third in spotless white. The first one goes 

Softly, with folded listless hands, dropped low, 

And eyes bent earthward, as a man that mourns. 

The second with his clasped hands at the waist 

Looks forward eagerly ; the third with hands 

Crossed on his breast converses with the stars. 

So move they ; till, behold, one comes to these 

Who seems the Son of God, and is a God, 

Clad in wrought gold ; who coming brings a book 

Saying to them, Write, and straight each in his turn 

Writes, and gives back the volume to that God, 

Who goes his way. Then those in white and grey 

Depart through fiery walks of lacing light 

And disappear, while one remains alone. 

Draw near, thou form in black, that hangest thy head 

And goest softly and lookest what thou art ; — 

The scholar and the weaver of warm rhymes, 

The lutanist and the lover, — draw thou near, 

Ay nearer yet, that I may re-peruse 



30 LIBER AM ORIS. 

That face long-buried from my sight, and tell 

Thy tale to him who listens at my side. 

'T is gone. A sigh of air flutters across 

The bedded sparks and sleep of glowing brands, 

And the face vanishes ; but the name shall live 

Of him, who dying left me Love's bright book, 

Who died that I might come within these walls, 

Without whose death I had not lived till now, — ■ 

Dorian, Provencal Dorian, the son 

Of old Sir Dorian, heir of Chateau d'Or. 

There is a corner of the green glad earth 
On which the times have laid down more than once 
Their weight of blessing. Thither came great Tyre 
Folding her feet in purple. There the Greek 
Brought his bright gods, and planted the fire-seed 
Of his republics, while his daughter spake 
Of Chios and her lost Ionian home 
In such sweet-vowelled words, ye sure had said, 
The Muses were come down from Helicon 



LIBER AMORIS. 31 

And danced upon her tongue. The Eoman there, 
Speaking his name in marble and wrought stone, 
Unveiled the graven code on his clear shield 
And with his spear wrote " Victory " in the dust 
Where fell the glorious Gael, and called that land, — 
Provincia. There came Love, a mightier lord, 
Following his servant Law, and at Love's word 
The broad Arabian stars loosed their first songs, 
When rising from Granada, they looked warm 
Above the cold Sierras and came near, 
Burning the Gothic dark with amorous light. 
And there came Venus, a poor exiled queen, 
In sackcloth and with ashes on her head, 
Ashamed and sad, out of her orient isles, 
Seeking on sunset shores a sweeter fruit 
Than that gold apple's, won and lost too soon. 
'T was there she called new children round her state. 
Where the grey olive dropped upon her head 
The crown and unction of a deathless reign. 



32 LIBER AMORIS. 

In a green covert of this pleasant land 
Was Dorian born and bred. Full fifty years 
Have flowed away to the returnless deep, 
Since I saw Dorian's shadow cross the sward 
That sloped through flowering terraces from the walls 
Of Chateau d'Or. A happy haunt it was 
Of holy sounds and healing shadows, made 
For love and labor and deep pastoral peace. 
In the bright languor of its air none knew 
Which were the sweeter task, — to w\ake or sleep. 
There morning came like noon, and when noon came, 
It seemed that morn were walking in her sleep 
Asking for afternoon through every nook 
Of noon's deserted world. A screen of pines 
With kindly gloom, like Life's presageful thoughts, 
Softened the north's drear message as it came, 
And broke it to the meadows, where they slept 
Lost in long slumbrous waves of green and grey, 
Shadowed and sunned, serenely spreading, rimmed 
With little distant hills, which always looked 



LIBER AMORIS. 33 

As if they said, Behind us there are others 
Greater than we. Here Dorian first drew breath, 
Such breath as makes the man. For many are born, 
Never to live, forgetting that man's life 
Begins not at his birth, but from that hour 
When Love's most holy spirit stamps the soul, 
And makes it current coin through all his realms. 
Then, as his childhood woke and looked abroad, 
A sense of wonder and worship and strange awe 
Came o'er him, and a love unspeakable. 
In him Love's kingdom had begun, and earth 
Was full of godlike Presences and Powers 
And sentinel Shapes that watched in all deep shades 
And spake in twilights. Much he loved sad things, 
But never was he sad before men ? s eyes. 
What if he sought out blithe and playful ways 
And gay resorts, yet sadness wore for him 
A beauty and a greatness else unknown. 
" For all sad things are great and beautiful, 
And great things still are sad," he used to say; 

3 



34 LIBER AMORIS. 

" Deep places gather darkness, and high hills 
Wear heavy-laden crowns of sorrowing cloud. 
Therefore Lord Love hath Suffering for his squire, 
And Sorrow and Love go alway hand in hand. 
This day Love leads out Sorrow, and on the next 
Sorrow leads Love, and schools men out of hate." 
Not least in prowess and martial exercise ; 
Yet these he honored not, save as their use 
Should yield his body a vassal to his will, 
And make each sense an altar, by whose light 
Nature and he might meet and mate each other. 
"For Love," said he, "is genius that can draw 
Whatever is best within us to wed fast 
AVhatever is best and loveliest under heaven." 

Sweet as the dawn of spring-time was the boy 
To brave Sir Dorian, lord of Chateau d'Or. 
Yea, since that hour when first the rosy bud 
Was laid on his faint hands, and smiled, still warm 
From its dead mother's kiss, how dear to him ! 



LIBER AMORIS. 35 

Dear as a jewel of price, the one thing saved 

By a wrecked merchant from his treasure-ship 

That founders in mid-sea. Oh ! nevermore 

Eode forth Sir Dorian by fair lady's side, 

For gentle pastime or for tournament, 

Since the dark moment when he knelt and wailed 

O'er the dead face, and cried : " Love ! my Lord 

Whom I have served so well, since here thou hast torn 

Thy dedicated image from its base, 

I raise to thee none else, and thus I lock 

Thy temple-doors for ever." So he lived. 

And when he saw his son going forth full oft 

To dance and song and pastoral festival, 

And the morn's musing and the noonday dream, 

Then w T ould he stay him in the pictured hall, 

And point to the long sword and battered shield 

And sun-stained banner which his grandsire bore 

At Ascalon and Damascus, and would say ; 

" Take thy great-grandsire's arms, and go for me 

Forth to the tilting-field and tournament, 



36 LIBER AM0B1S. 

And quit thee bravely in thy father's name. 
And then would Dorian answer, smiling sad ; 
" Forbear, sweet father ; with thy leave to-day 
This pipe shall be my sword, this lute my shield, 
And love my banner above me." 'Neath these arms 
And 'gainst the wainscot wall, stood two great chests 
Of timbered oak, brass-bound, that overflowed 
With gold and silver vessels, and on these, 
Caskets of moonstone and green malachite, 
Stored with all precious stones, haled by the hand 
Of that great-grandsire from the Syrian tents. 
To which his father pointing, pleaded still ; 
" If not his arms, then take his spoils, my son, 
And reign in Venice 'mid her merchant-kings. 
Sunlight is more than moonlight, speech than song, 
Labor than love. What profit is in love ? " 
To whom young Dorian, bowing reverently, 
Gave gentle answer : " Hear me, most sweet father. 
What need of riches, when the world is ours, 
When day and night, the regal sun and moon 



LIBER AMORIS. 37 

Shower gold and silver from their treasuries, 

When every evening opens o'er this earth 

Her sky's blue casket-lid warm-lined with gems ? " 

So passed his boyhood, and that season came 
When artist Nature pauses in her task, 
Uncertain whether she will keep the Boy 
A little longer, or with livelier touch 
Make no delay, but fashion forth the Man. 
And when his father saw him often pace 
The jasmine-braided gallery round the court 
In mood more serious and on speechless thoughts 
Intent, or murmuring to himself the words 
That bring, like cataracts or the stormy sea, 
Echoes of old forgotten oracles 

Heard once, when the great Gods were here on earth ; — 
Then would he say : " Now shall fair knowledge fill 
This void thin-peopled by distempering dreams. 
Dorian shall hence to Padua, and come back 
A steady studious heir to these my walls, 



38 LIBER AM OR IS. 

Which long shall hold our name through years to come, 
Unravished by the Church-wolf's greedy maw 
That gulps down all. No fear that he shall be 
A cleric, for he likes not over- well 
Crosier and shaven crown and holy Church." 
So vowed this gentle knight, so in his prayers 
Turned he toward Padua, mother and nurse of arts, 
From day to day, from month to lingering month, 
Till Dorian's travelling steps had passed behind 
Cold eastern Alp and the great Apennine, 
"Whose olive-wingfed feet send streams of oil 
To feed the lamps that unextinguished burn 
Over Saint Antony's blameless bed of dust. 

Who knows not Padua, Petrarch's Padua, 
Saint Antony's shrine, and Livy's sepulchre, 
And the last anchorage for Antenor's fleet, 
When Helen's beauty burned the towers of Troy ? 
Who knows not how the heavenward angels once 
Waited for Giotto, while his pencil caught 



LIBER AMORIS. 39 

And laid their passing shadows on the wall ? 

Who knows not how the Suabian bugle blew 

Its third great blast through all the German land, 

Till Rhine and Tiber and far Jordan heard 

And flowed in homage at their Frederick's feet ? 

Then Brenta's river heard, and Padua drew 

The breath imperial through her failing pulse, 

And Learning rose in Frederick's name, and paced 

The cloistral shadows dear to Learning's eyes, 

And liquid stairs, o'erwhispered by her feet, 

And rained her pearls upon the sunny heads 

That flowed like yellow leaves borne by strong winds 

Out of the northern land. Even such a wind 

Brought Dorian his first friendship and his doom. 

Of all that flew from the four-quartered heavens 
To Padua's halls, none came of note and plume 
Stronger and swifter and with stormier flight, 
Than the young broods that clamored from the North 
With voices like their cradle-winds, and words 



40 LIBER AMOEIS. 

Eough as the hoarse gurge of their groaning seas. 

Soon every glooming length of colonnade 

And pillared aisle and painted roof had learned 

The tongue that rings within the Italian ear 

Like a tempestuous music stern and sweet, 

An iron clapper in a golden bell. 

Hither, among the rest, came a strong youth 

Whose name was Rupert, a poor armourer's son, 

Bred near a castled rock in Allemaine, 

Sick of the clays of dull apprenticeship 

Which made him master of his father's craft, 

But left him slave of unfulfilled desires 

And hopes that died, and rose, and died again. 

For often as he fashioned with his father, 

Conrad de Lindenwald, hauberk or helm 

Or cuisse or vantbrace, had he said within ; 

" Perish your weapons with you, ye that fight ; 

The sword sows but the sword, force reaps but force. 

But whoso sways the consciences of men 

Is more than man and likest unto God. 



LIBER AMORIS. 41 

Not force, but power, shall sway the human will, 
For power is lordship and true sovereignty. 
Such armour would I forge as should re-clothe 
And curb the intractable world with inward law. 
God's priesthood is such power ; — that will I seek." 
Eager, adventurous, formed for highest ends 
And bent on high achievement, Eupert came ; 
Keen as a goshawk, patient as a steer, 
And poor as a poor church-fed mouse, he came 
To toil at Padua's university ; 
Where Dorian, then a scholar of two years, 
Beheld him, loved him, and was straight his friend. 

And now the college seasons gliding by, 
Thrice had their yearly feast of love been spread, 
Thrice had they dressed in summer leaves and flowers 
The shapeless image of time's terminal stone. 
And often had the aspiring arduous heart 
Of Rupert failed, and he with famished scrip 
And starving hope had bent his laggard steps 



42 LIBER A1I0RIS. 

Back to his Northland valley dark with firs, 

Had not quick Dorian held his friend's poor hand 

To make it rich by the full gift within, 

And richer still without by kiss and tear 

And supplication, whilst he strove and sued ; 

" Stay, stay, my Eupert; wherefore wouldst thou go 

Thus early from me in our budding spring, 

Ere the fresh-flowering incense on Love's bough 

Can break into bright song of summer birds, 

And thence to fruitage sweet to thee and me ? 

Where are the vows, the promises, that made 

Thee mine, and all that I inherit thine ? 

Thine, therefore, even as mine, is this poor key 

That opens for us twain the golden gate 

To Padua's faery gardens, where all trees 

Of knowledge ripen with each chauging moon. 

Why thrust aside with no unworthy hand 

Gifts that still come as gifts to all that breathe ? 

Has Life yet sounded her retreat ? Do swords 

And dragons' teeth flame round the Hesperian fruit, 



LIBER AMORIS. 43 

Or drive thee from its banquet ? Do not Gods 
Still sing thee to their feast, saying, ' Come up hither' ? 
When the tides thunder ' Forward ! ' why turn back ? 
On that sad morning when thou leftest home, 
Thou didst kneel soft beside thy mother's grave, 
And madest her name thy last beatitude. 
Thy father's lifted hands and the wet lips 
Of thy sweet sister blest thy parting steps, 
And men from tilth and garden dropped their 

tasks 
To walk long leagues and bring thee on thy way. 
Wilt thou go back to witnesses like these, 
The living and the dead, — with empty hands 
And pledges unredeemed, a graduate 
In nothing but in broken promises, 
In vows abandoned and in prayers that mock 
The listening hosts of heaven ? Didst thou not give 
Thyself to God, and ask but one bright chance ? 
And see ! the long-sought happy chance is here, 
And thou wilt turn thy back on such a field, 



44 LIBER AMORIS. 

On God, on friendship, on thy nobler self, 

To leave the ploughshare, like a stranded keel, 

Dead in the fruitless furrows of thy life ! " 

Musing a while, then Rupert gloomily said ; 
" I owe not anything, nor would 1 hold 
Save what my own right hand shall win for me." 

As an eaves-building martin darts away 
From her unfinished nest, that she may bring 
Some few slight straws or twist of tufted wool, 
To line a love-bed that shall keep her brood ; 
So back flew Dorian to renew his plea, 
Ee-lining it with warm and chance-throw T n waif 
Of reasoning that might stay his wavering friend ; 
" In this one thing, my Eupert, art thou lacking. 
Purely to give and purely to receive, 
Ask for the selfsame spirit. Wherefore love 
Is no less needed in the hands that take 
Than in the hands that minister the gift. 



LIBER AM0B1S. 45 

But thou, — thou prizest more what thou niayest 

win 
With thy unweaponed power than what the hearts 
Of Gods might bleed to thee. A crown may bribe, 
A kiss will never buy thee. There, it grows, 
The love of power, but not the love of love, 
Through those dark-tangled shadows of thy thoughts, 
Where the sharp fingers of pinched poverty 
Set deep the rooted bane of paltry cares, 
From which I now would free thee, knowing well 
That thou art formed by many a master-stroke 
Grandly for good or evil. Nay, sweet Rupert, 
But take, I pray thee, that which is thine own ; 
Not I, but some kind deity makes it thine. 
And know thou this, that he who will not stoop 
To take the fruit ripe-fallen at his feet 
To-day, will on the morrow breathless leap 
And tear the unwilling apple from the bough, 
Unkind to himself and that which lianas above. 
And yet how knowest thou, brother, if mine eyes 



46 LIBER AMOBIS. 

May not win back for me in years unborn 

Far more than this poor little that I give ? 

What large repayment and rich recompense 

Shall then be Dorian's, when his life-worn feet 

Tread the last wintering slope of leafless days, 

And he perchance athirst for southern draughts 

Of charmed ambrosial air shall light upon 

Some incense-breathing isle or summer bay 

Or soft Sicilian shore, and find thee there, 

Between deep-violet hills and opal floors 

Of evening water, on a marble seat 

Cooled with the tender dusk of sycamores, 

In the red shadow of thy cardinal's hat ; 

Audi coming he will lay his hand in thine 

And look with tears in thy slow-questioning eyes, 

Saying, ' Knowest thou thy friend ? ' Then thou wilt 

look, 
And all at oiice dim memories will flow back 
Moistening thine eyelids with a yearning love, 
Till thou shalt turn away, lest those around 



LIBER AMOBIS. 47 

Should mark thy changing cheek. There will I sit 

Near thee, and, mute with joy, will gaze at thee, 

While on thy lip some ripe great word shall wait 

To fall amid the pause of lighter talk, 

Like heavier fruit that drops through gossiping leaves 

Of orchard trees in autumn afternoons. 

And when we are left alone, thou wilt come near, 

Forgetting all thy pomp, and wilt embrace me, 

And weeping ask me, ' Dorian, sweet my friend, 

Tell me thy heart's least wish, and I am thine 

To do it for thee to my uttermost.' 

Then will I answer, and utter all my heart, 

And kneel and lay my face between thy hands, 

And tell thee all my sorrow and all my care, 

The sobbed confessions of the o'erburthened soul. 

And I will hear in thine absolving word 

A deeper voice, and find beneath thy robe 

A man's heart and a man's hand, and in these 

That mightier hand and heart, that wipes the tears 

And rolls away the burthens of the world." 



48 LIBER A3I0EIS. 

Such plea was Dorian's in his last appeal 
To Eupert, and with such plea he prevailed. 
And though in thought he shaped no baseless dream, 
Yet little knew he what their ends should be. 
Ah me ! and little know we, any of us, 
Of that which shall be, when on heights of morn 
We shape and sing toward heaven our crown of towers. 
And while we yet are singing, comes a gloom 
And a red hand strikes through our roof of stars 
And hurls us down 'mid showers of rafter-sparks 
To utter darkness, bidding us there begin 
And thence build slowly, strongly, even as He 
Who ever layeth his lowest palace-beams 
Deep in dark waters. So it was with these, 
Yoke-fellows twain, whom time came now to loose, 
Sweet-harnessed in Love's chariot of three years. 
Yet fain had Dorian tarried, while his friend 
Ean the full-rounded academic race 
And won its goal ; when suddenly from the North 
Came hot on flying hoof to Eupert's hand 



LIBER AMORIS. 49 

A summons from his village lord and liege, 

The Baron of Engelstein ; a message drear 

Of double darkness, like a thunder-cloud 

Black on both sides with midnight, which spake thus ; 

" Eupert de Linden wald, — thy sire is dead. 

Count thyself henceforth as mine armourer, 

And hie thee hither. And make thou no delay ; 

I hold thy sister in my hands for pledge." 

Then rose they both together and weeping went 
Forth of old Padua. To Verona's walls 
They came, with purpose there to part, and pass 
Each to his home. But he of Chateau d'Or, 
Who knew that farewell words are alway sad, 
Wherever spoken, and most in stranger lands, 
Where least we are loved and known, begged of his 

friend 
As a last boon, that he would ride with him 
Back to Provence, and tarry at least a day 
Under the rooftree of his father's house. 



50 LIBER AMORIS. 

" For there," said he, " that sweetest-bitterest word 
' Farewell ' may part with half its sting, when dipped 
In the honey-word of ' home.' Thence will we waft 

thee 
Swift-spurred and mounted on our best of steeds 
Home to thy village sovran and liege-lord. 
So shalt thou reach him sooner than with staff 
And pained steps from these Verona gates." 
This said, they pricked their fiery westward way 
Down the long sunset of the Lombard plains, 
And passed the Ehone, whose purple-veined life 
Threads the warm side of the Provencal land, 
And on by sylvan lodge and court and grange 
They flew to Chateau d'Or. With what a cry 
Of self-renouncing ecstasy Dorian leaped 
Straight from the saddle to his father's arms. 
Nor less than as a newborn son came he, 
Eupert de Lindenwald, to the clasp and kiss 
Of the brave knight. Such power there is in Love 
To make the distant near, the several one, 



LIBER AM ORIS. 51 

And wind through labyrinthine shades of death 
Touches of subtle-fingered threads, whereby 
The darkened spirit feels toward that far light 
In which the fatherless may find a father. 

But what lives more forlorn and fatherless 
Than he who, turning bitterly on his heart 
Unnested of its hopes, broods there alone, 
Eef using comfort and that baby hope 
Which then comes when its mother hope departs ? 
The leopard springs but once upon its prey, 
And failing springs not thither again, but hoards 
His fiercer fang-fires for the next he meets. 
Such now was Eupert even in Chateau cl'Or, 
Even where a father s and a brothers love 
Lit their untiring and alternate fires 
Like interchange of sunlight and of stars. 
Love with his beauty and gladness, rural-rich, 
Came near and touched him, but he saw them not. 
He saw^ not when the merry-making swains 



52 LIBER AMORIS. 

Brought mime and masque, or reeled on frolic foot 
To pipe and viol and droning cornkmuse. 
He saw not when the cotters' brown red cheeks 
Thronged blushing round the gates and bending 

brought 
Heart-homage and lip-service and warm tears. 
He saw not when their May-sweet maidens came 
Bringing him fresh-culled cresses and white curds 
And amber honey fragrant of the fig, 
With coronals of little flowers, that hid 
Their wood-born kisses for the taintless feet 
Of snowy girlhood. None of these he saw, 
Save with such smiles as, darker far than frowns, 
Shine dead as sunlight on a barren moor. 
But when on the last morning Dorian heaved 
The heavy stubbornness of those huge lids 
That held the household treasures, and set free 
Their gleam that sent its brief, unfruitful summer 
Up the smooth wainscot panels, then the soul 
Of the grave Northman flashed, and all at once 



LIBER AM ORIS. 5 ', 

His thwarted passion couched for its new spring. 
" gold and silver," he cried, " and precious stones, 
Eare dust outshaken from the skirts of Ind ! 
strong divinities of the world ! your might 
Is more than bannered armies, and your swords 
Sharper than tempered steel. All power is yours. 
For gold is kingship, gold is liberty. 
Love brings not gold or silver ; but where gold 
Eeigns, there poor Love leads in his rosy boys 
With all their kissing comforts and warm smiles, 
Throning us happier than the painless gods. 
Sayest thou, poor idle, envious heart, that gold 
Is the dark root of all our evil here ? 
Gold was man's primal paradise, and when gold 
Failed him, then preyed man on his brother's blood, 
And still will prey thereon. Gold was in truth 
The world's beginning, gold must be its end. 
Back to such gold beginnings man must go 
Ere the white marriage-morn of earth and sky 
Can break with its long thousand years of love. 



54 LIBER AMORIS. 

Give me an age of gold ; that age alone 
Leads back our centuries to the years of God." 

Whereat the hand of Dorian dipping low 
Into a jewel-casket, to take thence 
Its purest morning-star, was quick withdrawn 
And raised as if in protest, while he spake ; 
" Nay, but I jest not : Choose before thou goest 
Between these two, — an idol or a God, 
Thy God and mine, the God above all others. 
There is no God but Love, who leads the stars 
And sows whatever is of light and life 
And beauty through these acres of the world. 
And such a deity thou exchangest now 
For emptiness and a small ounce of gold 
That leaves thee poorly rich in life's last hour, 
Forsaken, lost, cast forth to utter death, 
Heartless and disinherited of hope. 
Oh ! yet remember, how the Paduan Saint 
Once preaching pointed to the rich man's bier, 



LIBER AMORIS. 55 

Saying, c "Where your treasure is, your heart is also." 
Yon greedy heart that never sighed for heaven, 
Eeturns not to its God even through the grave. 
Not in the coffin here, but there at home 
In his stuffed coffer lies that dead man's heart.' 
And so they went to the usurer's house, and found 
In its own money- chest the usurer's heart, 
One knot of shrivelled canker-eaten roots, 
Bloodless and hard and yellow as its gold. 
And back they came to search the soulless dead, 
And probed the vacant chamber, where the stilled 
Life-pulses should have slept, but nothing was 
Save a cold, heartless void. Eupert, Eupert ! 
Take back those thoughts of thine, and for love's sake 
Have courage, rise and be thyself again. 
Give me thy pledge, and on thy hand wear this, 
Wherewith I wed thee now with changeless love." 

He said, and stooping to the casket, drew 
From its dim night what seemed its morning-star, 



56 LIBER AM ORIS. 

A magic circlet of warm gold, wherefrom 
A rainbow-colored gem rayed forth a dawn 
Of light, for which Aurora might have stayed 
The Day's steep horses, while she bound its fire 
In the far-flowing billows of tossed hair 
Above the sunrise of her calm pure brow. 
Down in a ghostly glen of Jinnestan 
An elfin maid had wept it, and the tear, 
Her last-born perfect tear, of many shed 
Imperfect in their love, had sent her free 
From her swart starless cavern of slow pains, 
Where she had penanced, all for lack of love 
Through six lone cycles, till the seventh brought 
Love perfect, and therewith this perfect tear ; 
In whose pure light she saw the long-sought hues 
Of half-remembered rainbow and sun-woofs 
Of waterfall, about whose feet she had played, 
Once happy in child-happiness, when hope 
Shone unfulfilled, and love as yet unripe 
Came sweet, and then turned bitter on her lips. 



LIBER AMORIS. 57 

There in the nether night of that dark den 

A holy dervish, planet-led, had found 

This love-created wonder, and on its face 

Had wrought Love's nameless name for talisman, 

And circumscribed it with strange spells of might, 

And so came back breathless, forespent, and pale, 

Up from the terror of that underworld. 

But ever afterwards, by night or day, 

Sleeping or waking, he still saw and heard 

The mooned eyes of demons, and deep groan 

And hollow sound of hellward-opening doors, 

With, voices and whatever else brings fear. 

Such was this diamond, and so won ; which now 
Dorian drew forth from out its hiding-place 
For Eupert's hand. And sure if Love himself, 
Wishing to show us how pure love is born, 
Could will back from his sweetly -kingdom'd worlds 
His circumfusfed and confineless soul, 
And lock it up in one small prisoning stone, 



58 LIBER AM ORIS. 

He never could have chosen a nest so sweet, 
A birth or bringing forth so like himself. 

Then swore they friendship and eternal love, 
And gave each other a parchment roll, well stored 
With chosen words writ fair in black and red, 
The testament of two consenting souls. 
And each one crowned his brother with a hat 
Decked with a heart of gold and fresh love-flowers. 
Thereto Sir Dorian added as his gifts 
A charm-engraven sword, whose hilt was bright 
With sun-showered chrysolites and rubies jed, 
Sweet as the death-drops from Adonis' side, 
And, — for he saw that Eupert needs must 

go,— 
A swift steed black and beautiful as night, 
Which mounting he spurred forth toward Allemaine. 

Here would I gladly pause, my Brother Basil, 
And rein the forward stepping of my speech, 



LIBER AMOBIS. 59 

To take new breath for more which thou wouldst learn 

And I would ease my heart in telling thee. 

For know this in good sooth, that old Aurelius 

Would not be visiting with his latest words 

Thy patient ear, while the Night's passing-bell 

Tolls out the death of this her firstborn hour, 

Nor would I now look back on fifty years, 

A watcher from these monastery walls, 

Had not the sad-starred life of Dorian sunk 

Into a midnight dark and wild as this, — 

A midnight which brought forth a morn to me. 

Throw on fresh wood ; the fire burns low ; here lie 
Grey beds of sparkless dust, and there the flame 
Unravels its last threads of flickering light 
From round the black bones of this dying hearth. 
Heap high the crackling billets, till each log 
Bursts into fiery foliage and brings back 
Out of the glimmering dusk this antique room 
With its quaint furnishing and the marble front 



60 LIBER AMORIS. 

Of this high carven mantel, whose white squares 
Glow, like the summer skies, with blue and gold. 
There, Basil, it is done. And see, the Moon 
Sails upward from the South through refluent surge 
Of cloud, and gains the midnoon of her night, 
While yon wide-windowed space dilates and shrinks, 
As the slant flood of beams dawns up or dies, 
Or dawns again through its black-branching stems 
And rich-stained oriel, where the stricken Christ 
Bows mute unmurmuring to the scourge and thorn. 
Now comes a gloom across the glass, and see, 
His body darkens down and seems to droop 
In mortal anguish, and his thorns grow sharp. 
Now from the shuddering masses of torn cloud 
A white fire grows and lightens o'er the panes, 
And the pale body kindles, and the thorns 
Break into snowy roses round his head. 
And listen, Basil, to the sky's deep peace 
That breathes as though afraid of its own breath. 
By this the ravening North-wind has hewn out, 



LIBER AMORIS. 61 

As with a woodman's axe, a sun-broad path 
For the fair Moon to walk in, and by this 
Out of her backward-flowing forest-world 
Of intertangled cloud, and cloudlike leaves 
And cloudborn bowers of dissolving shade, 
She lifts her argent forehead to the heavens, 
And looks abroad in love, and shines alone. 
Hark ! how her lunar soul melts forth in sound, 
And all the silence overflows with song 
Inaudible, but haply heard by thee. 



MOON-SONG. 



MOON-SONG. 



Now the day's red-tressed lion 
Lies asleep, while starred Orion 
Shouts, and I the spotless Dian 

Lead iny snowy fawns abroad, — ■ 
Calm Desire, the soul's defender, 
Silent Memories sad and tender, 
With unspoken vows that render 

Man for every chance a god, 
And there walks in midst thereof, 
Crowned with godlight from above, 
Stoled with starry-tissued splendor, thought's bright 
Love unawed. [blender, 

Of thy months the slow allotter, 
I arise, Earth, my daughter, 
As a snow-flower from the w x ater 

Of the South 's ensilvered sea, 
5 



66 LIBER A3I0BIS. 

And I soar with breathless going, 
Holy seedlight o'er thee sowing, 
Which the Sun, thy sire, bestowing 

Showers from radiant hands on me, 
Like a precious ointment poured 
On a bride's brow by her lord, 
Till his glory purer growing and o'erflowing 
Streams to thee. 

sweet Earth ! behold thy mother, 
Like whose love there is none other, 
In whose smile each strong star-brother 

Veils his light and voice divine ; 
Up this milk-white highway wheeling, 
See, I send my pearl-dawn stealing, 
And their diamond-dust concealing, 

Sun and system cease to shine ; 
On their orbs I rain my showers 
Soft as dew on day-sick flowers, 
But with none I mix my feeling, deeply healing, 
As with thine. 

When thy father's day-smiles dwindle, 
I, thy mother, rise and kindle 



LIBER AMORIS. 67 

Bright threads round my swelling spindle, 
And I watch and weave o'er thee 
Noiseless nets of light unshaken, 
In whose listless toils are taken 
Dreams, that call on Dreams to waken 
Sweetest elfin shapes that be; 
Then the soul through magic sleep 
Onward sails from deep to deep, 
And the unharbored heart forsaken, wellnigh breaking, 
Rests in me. 



Lo ! the sun exacts each morrow 
Tribute from thy fire-fed furrow, 
Wealth for warmth which thou dost borrow, 
Gold fruit for his gold light sown ; 
Freer than the monrs commander, 
Light unharvested I squander, 
Beams that ever fruitless wander, 

Born of love, and all thine own. 
Child, I nurse thee for no boot, — 
Wine or flower or fragrant root ; 
Lighting thee with spirit fonder, I dart yonder 
Love alone. 



68 LIBER AMORIS. 

When the sun's light loosens, beaming, 
Half his sheaf of shafts up streaming, 
Home flies Love with all his dreaming ; 

But my light when reared above, — 
Be it shield or crescent sabre, — 
Calls on Love to sweetly neighbor 
Listening maid and whispering day -boor 

While he soothes his moaning dove. 
Sunlight lures, like golden fleece, 
Eastward : mine is westward peace ; 
His a trumpet, mine a tabor ; his for labor, 
Mine for love. 



Is all work a claim to lordship ? 
When did wealth and all its worship 
Fire thee to a sense of earthship, 

Kindle thee to vernal birth ? 
Therefore from my hills' white highlands, 
Meres and vision-peopled islands, 
Wells and streams of lunar silence, 

I bring powers of purer worth, 
And I wind within the springs 
Of man's higher imaginings 



LIBER AMORIS. G9 

Spells of holy peace, till thy lands are as my lands, 
Daughter Earth. 

Here sits Love in silent musing, 
Bright with dark threads interfusing, 
Weaving webs for poets' choosing 

Through my darkly-silvering shell. 
Here my moon-maids, none deny it, 
Feast in philosophic quiet, 
Festal, free from terrene riot, 

Bound their cups of hydromel ; 
Where, by rainbow-tangled stream 
Droning downward in a dream, 
They drink peace, and at my fiat, sweetly sigh it 
Down Night's dell. 

Hark ! what new song stirs my planet ? 
Whence these odorous airs that fan it 
Bound my ribs of gold and granite 

And my forehead pure and white ? 
Like a sheep before her shearer 
I wax faint, as they come clearer 
From my Titan brothers nearer, 

Minstrel stars of mastering might. 



70 LIBER AMORIS. 

sweet child, one parting kiss, — 
'T is thy mother's ; and know this, 
Of thy moans there comes no hearer ever dearer, — 
So, Good-night ! 

Back through these cloud-woven valleys 
Now I seek my shadowy palace, 
Where each nymph her comrade rallies, 
Filling founts of morn for me. 
Thence all lights of Love's own legion 
Through my silver-sapphired region 
Soon shall throng at my decision, 

And the stars shall shrink to see 
Me with newly-nectared urn 
Rise again, and break and burn 
Thy dark nights with dawns Elysian, rich in vision, 
Child, for thee. 



PART TWO. 



II. 



" Moon of the South, white-breasted bird of peace, 
Why like a dove down-sliding on slow wing 
In short and timorous flight, lea vest thou thus 
The silent heavens that wait upon thy voice, 
As August woods wait on their last bird's note ? 
Why hastenest thou to hide thy face and quench 
Thy faint song in the deserts of the dark ? 
Is thy pale light less lovely and are thy gleams 
Less pure in their divineness than the Sun's, 
Thy brother and thy bridegroom and thy lord, 
That thou shouldst come in visitation thus, 
Ah me ! thus brief ? The Sun draws forth his light 
To show us all things rather than himself, 



74 LIBER AMORIS. 

And showing men his gifts he kindles them 

To gainful paths o'erblown with blinding dust, 

And leads them morn by morn in murmuring throngs 

To the fierce onset of the field and street, 

Crying, ' Work, Work,' till w T ork and ownership 

Grow the chief end and happiness of man. 

But when thou risest, nothing in heaven and earth 

Is seen or heard saving thyself alone. 

The world fomets itself and feels but thee, 

And day's sharp sword creeps back into its sheath, 

And its loud trumpet falters, when thou comest 

With looks of truce, and sweetly sunderest men 

With silver-sceptred silence. Oh ! thy light 

Was never lifted as a fiery flag 

For hosts to shout by. How can armed men flash 

Their orphan-making swords in thy meek face ? 

When catch they fire enough from thy mild eyes 

To light one death-star on the bickering points 

Of battle-bringing spears ? For such as these 

Thy reconciling day of lesser light 



LIBER AJIOBIS. 75 

Was never born. Thou bringest just light enough 
To show two happy lovers the one face 
That each has pined for through the weary noon, 
Just light enough to draw two parted souls 
Within the hearing of one little sigh, 
Just light enough to point the shortest way 
Through envious distance to the dewy nest 
Where kisses meet and mix and multiply. 
Just light enough for this. For thou art Love, 
The love that living only for love's sake 
v Asks nothing but to live, and be itself, 
And do its own dear will. And yet, sweet Moon, 
Sweet maiden-mother, if thy light indeed 
Be love, why changest thou from day to day, 
Oh constant only in thy changefulness ? 
Is it that thou wouldst say to those on earth ; 
' I change not ; 't is vour shadow of change on me 
That changes. I am but your dial hung 
On the blue walls of these unchanging heavens, 
Who by my slow mutations monish you 



76 LIBER AMOR IS. 

Of man's half-love and mutability ' ? 

Moon ; Mother, my maiden queen, 

Thou art the woman and the womanly 

In these wide heavens ; thou art the light wherethrough 

All fiery lights and loves come purified 

Into the lives of men ; thou art love in part, 

And therefore thou remainest not, but hidest 

Thy near and narrower light, that so our thoughts 

May pass beyond the One, and rise and reach 

The Many, and so climb up to fruitfuller boughs 

Of Life's ascending tree, till through its leaves 

We look, and lo ! a sky bent o'er the sky, 

A spring beyond the spring, Gods above Gods, 

Life endless, and the innumerable stars." 

Soothing his heart with such soliloquies, 
In the calm ebbing of a moon like this 
Now westering into darkness, Dorian went, 
Eiding alone under great wayside oaks, 
Whose black bulks, pillar-like, propped a broad shade, 



LIBER AMORIS. 77 

That whispered scarce one secret of their lives 
Of ancient leafiness to him who passed 
Beneath them, lost in solitary thought. 
Southward he rode through a rare night in spring, 
Southward he rode toward beautiful Beaucaire 
And Bomalin's castle-walls. Why rode he thither ? 
Why spurred he always forward, far in front 
Of those that followed him ? And with what vows 
Unheard, whose only tongue was the few tears 
That rose but fell not ? This I now would tell thee. 

Ten times the Moon had bent her bow in heaven 
Since Eupert rode away from Chateau d'Or, 
And more than ten times ten had Dorian winged 
His drooping day-dreams through the misty North 
After his friend, lonmnq; exceedingly 

7 o o o J 

To see his face again. For Dorian's soul 
Was womanlike in all things, and his love 
Grew as a maiden's for the one strong man, 
Whose heart she will not lose for earth or heaven. 



78 LIBER AMORIS. 

In vain he forged a thousand little links 

From all home-keeping duties that might chain 

His vagrant thoughts. In vain, with morn's fresh hour, 

On tasks of self-appointed stewardship, 

Guessing his father's wishes, he went forth 

Among the sheepcotes and the delvers' toils, 

Or on through orchard-lawns and oliveyards 

And couchlike meadows, where the kine stood cool, 

Knee-deep in the still stream beneath the boughs 

Of some broad beech. In vain, when Evening rose 

Proclaiming peace in name of all her stars, 

Turned he again and sat in the great light 

Of the hall's fagot-fire, and read aloud 

Some poet's rolling verse, or touched the harp 

And sang his father's secret sorrow away. 

'T was all alike in vain. Still round him grew 

That subtle spiritual overshadowing, 

The unreal sadness nursed within the thoughts, 

Itself a thought and feeling, such as oft 

O'erclouds the springtide splendors of our youth. 



LIBER AMOBIS. 79 

Whether this come by Nature's kindly law 
Tempering the too-much glory of Life's great morn, 
Lest it should blind and blast us ; or, if one 
May make conjecture of high Wisdom's ways, 
This is that merciful foretaste of the wells 
Of bitterness, ere that we stoop and drink 
What else must be a sharp soul-killing draught. 
Be these things, Brother Basil, as they may, 
Such nameless woe now came on Dorian's soul, 
No self-begotten grief, sprung from the void 
Of wanton discontent, but something shaped 
Far hence, and hither brought by God's own breath. 
Even as a seaborn mist from off the sea 
Gathers and darkens down a shore at noon 
We know not how, and creeping inland sleeps 
On the sad fields that never gave it birth. 
Soon out of such dim vapor-laden moods 
Came love, which long had lain deep in his soul 
Like a soft babe asleep. As yet he loved not, 
But only longed to love, and ever sought 



80 LIBER AMOBIS. 

Something to love. Such now was Dorian 
Swayed softly forward on the stream that sways 
The world. For we must love, or else we die. 

All this his father saw, then begged of him, 
As of his dear, his only son, that he 
Would take the vows of knighthood, and ride forth, 
And kindle afresh the faded fire of fame 
And honors of their half-forgotten house. 
So Dorian rose and did his fathers will. 
And when he heard that round about Beaucaire 
And up at Eomalin, there were soon to be 
A three days' tourney and a tilt of song, 
And after these a session of Love's court, 
He took his father's squire with mounted men, 
And forth they set, a gallant company. 

So came it, on this breathless night in spring 
Dorian went riding down to Eomalin. 
And as he rode, he watched the skies like leaves 



LIBER AMORIS. 81 

Above him open and shut, as 't were the book 
Of Love in man's own life. For first he saw 
The moon's bright body drop into the grave 
Of darkness and then crumble into stars, 
And so come back in starlight. Then the stars 
Grew larger and came nearer one another, 
And coming nearer, all their diamond fires 
Melted in one great diamond of the dawn. 

Calm in a sea of wonder-working lights 
Of morn, like a fair isle, the castle lay, 
A sheaf of towers, and every tower stood out 
Eose-red in daybreak, where the walls between 
Were lost in liquid shadows cold and grey. 
Far off, through miles of morning air it came 
So near, that Dorian thought he almost heard 
The tread of warder and the trumpet-call 
Blown from the battlements. In proud array 
Thither they galloped, knight and squire and men. 
The great sun rose ; the world awoke ; the bird 



82 LIBER AMORIS. 

Piped from the tree ; man's foot was in the field. 
And on they passed to Eomalin's castle-gates. 

And when they came, the green wide space before 
The gateway was thick-sown with festal throngs, 
Gay as a garden of flowers in sweet mid-June, 
And there were tents and great pavilions topped 
With tall red staves, whose pennons coiled and shook 
Like fiery flying serpents down the breeze. 
Near these a fair new tiltyard had been ploughed 
By chosen milkwhite steers, that well had graced 
The board of Jove, when his high godhead stooped 
To feast with mortal men. All the ploughed space, 
Twelve acres wide and more, was planted close 
With largess of gold coin, soon to shine forth 
In harvest for the ploughers. Round about, 
From bar and baluster and circling seat 
Grew a deep murmur, as of honey-bees 
Through w^oody dells in spring ; and heralds went 
And came in figured coats of gold, and squires 



LIBEli AMORIS. 83 

In silken scarf and vest, or now a page, 

With girlish face, fair hair, and lissom limb, 

Or troubadour with slow caressing hand, 

That lingering up the lutestring spilled some drops 

Of his love-lay long treasured. And with these 

Were tender tearful maidens many a one, 

And many a lovelorn man, and some that loved, 

And ladies lily-necked who laughed and leaned 

Across the crimson cloth that overflowed 

The balconies, while now and then a knight 

Came near with helm in hand, and bowed the 

knee, 
And begged with yearning look a blessing bright 
From the starred eyes of dame and damosel. 

But Dorian came not near ; he begged no boon, 
He bound no lady's favor on his helm, 
Rich glove or broidered sleeve. From none he 

sought 
A smile, or some more precious gift of grace, 



84 LIBER AMORIS. 

Such as the gentle give unto the strong, 
Making them stronger. Pale with anxious fears, 
He waited in the press of new-made knights 
Beyond the tiltyard gate, and felt in truth 
How oftentimes in life we are loneliest 
When we are least alone. Far off the sea 
Loomed southward, like a bed of burning blue, 
Smoothed by the seamaids with their silken spread 
Of wavy tresses, whereon Venus lay 
With flowerlike feet and sunlit sides of snow. 
So Dorian deemed, and straight he prayed to God, 
Asking that from that day and through all years 
He might serve Love, and serving win Love's crown. 
Then seemed it, Venus rose from off the sea, 
Her faithless, fluctuant sea, and with sweet strength 
She came to him, growing heavenlier as she came. 
And when the trumpet sounded, in he rode 
Through the dropped barriers past the balconies, 
Clad in black armour, bearing a small shield 
Heart-shaped, and all of azure. On it gleamed 



LIBER AMORIS. 85 

A sinking crescent moon, whose horns, upturned, 
Shed heavenward from between them silver seeds 
Of stars unnumbered, and the stars in turn 
Waned upward to a seven-rayed morning star. 
Close to the shield's gold rim this legend ran, 
Amor omnia vineit Such was the device. 
Then all men wondered who this black knight was, 
And named him there, The Knight of the Morning 

Star. 
And brightly did the Morning Star all day 
Eise through the dust of onset and the shock 
Of shivered spear-shafts. Whether on foot or 

horse, 
With staff or truncheon, blade or bickering lance, 
Alone or in the thick of knights he rode, 
Still was he foremost, not so much by force 
Of bulk and thew, or cunning turns of hand, 
As by a swift and supple-sinewed strength' 
And springing spirit, that stirred the lookers-on, 
Till from all sides, like showers on summer leaves 



86 LIBER AMORIS, 

With thunders following, came the clap of hands 
And the long clamor of their stormy praise. 

Nor less pre-eminent rose he in the strife 
Of strings, and the twin birth of voice and verse. 
For when on the fourth day they brought their harps 
And psalteries, and the flowers of sound took shape, 
Like God's light, at a moment's word, he rose 
When his turn came, and played and sang, and all 
Praised much his song. For Dorian once had caught 
A wild sad music from old Carolan, — 
Carolan, a minstrel from the Land of Ire, 
Poor, blind, and old, a wanderer of the world, 
Who oft had sojourned in his father's halls, 
And taught him in his boyhood how 7 to play 
On that sad harp of his, which ancient grief 
And love had strung with wind and fire and tears, 
And filled with sounds of showers and sobbing seas 
And wailing waters of the darkening West. 
Thus Dorian sang, — not like those mimicking jays 



LIBER AMORIS. 87 

"Who flaunt them in a patchwork of worn words 
And cast-off jewels and tawdry shreds of speech, 
Oerdropped with perfumes pressed from flowers long 

dead. 
He sang out from his soul what he found there ; 
He sang of Love and Life and Sorrow and Death, 
Of Knowledge and of sweet Philosophy ; 

He sang how Love is mightiest of all these, 

The author and end of all things, God's great Son. 
He sang of one, a maiden beautiful, 
"Whom he had never seen save in his dream. 
He sang how a poor knight had loved her long, 
How he had loved her unto death, and died, 
And how they two were buried in one grave. 
'And all they listened with wide lips and eyes, 
And when he ceased, they still sat listening all. 

Oh ! who then of the hushed throngs gathered there, 
But answered that to Dorian should be given 
The golden violet and the Poet's crown ? 



88 LIBER AMORIS. 

So he, about whose neck but yestereve 

The baldric had been slung and victor sword 

Of that year's knighthood, felt on his new brow 

The laurel chaplet bright with amaranth blooms. 

But how shall amaranth blooms, and laurel leaves, 

And gold enamelled violet, and swift sword 

With subtle -traceried baldric, slake the soul 

That thirsts for life, more life, and life through love ? 

Meanwhile the promise of night had fallen from 
heaven 
In sweet surprise of stars, and the great hall 
Within the castle had convened its guests, 
The lords and ladies of the Court of Love, 
Its servants and its vassals. The grey walls 
Bloomed forth, like some dark forest in strange flowers 
With arras, looms of Ypres, and brocade, 
With shields and banneroles blazoned with such dyes 
As autumn or bright evening lends the world. 
Torches and triple crowns of twinkling lights 



LIBER A310BTS. 89 

Bemocked the midnight skies. At the upper end, 

On her high dais-throne sat the fair queen, 

Love's chosen queen, the Lady Blanchelvs, — 

A pale imperial face and dovelike eyes, 

That still seemed sad with sweet remembered pain. 

A little cap of velvet poppy-red, 

Fringed with rare pearls, enthralled her back-bound 

weight 
Of ebon hair. A stole of snowy whiteness, 
Forth-creeping from a crimson bodice, flowed 
Down to her silver-slippered feet, and back 
From off her small pure shoulders fell a robe 
Of saffron-colored samite, like a cloud 
Of summer gold. Behind her and o'erhead 
Bose a broad sapphire canopy of state, 
Fretted with amber. Near, a silver lamp 
Fed with most fragrant oils above her drooped, 
And from her left hand drooped a woven wreath 
Of myrtle and young roses of the prime. 
So sat the Ladv Countess Blanchelvs 



90 LIBER AMORIS. 

And listened, while a service of sweet sounds 

From voice and murmuring harp and soft citole 

Grew up and died like a fine fragrance. Then 

A glittering herald came, and stood, and made 

His clear- voiced proclamation ; " Hear, hear ! 

Know all ye present that this Court of Love 

Is duly opened." And forthwith a scribe 

Rose in his place with scroll in hand, and called ; 

" Let young Sir Dorian first stand forth and say 

Wherefore he seeketh to be one of us. 

What hope, or grief, or love-thought leads him hither ? 

Is his heart pure ? And can he take these vows 

Upon him, swearing fealty to our laws ? " 

And Dorian stood before the queen and spake ; 

" If ye shall judge me worthy, gracious queen, 
Ladies and lords, to take your holy vows 
And be Love's vassal, sure I am that He 
Who led me hither, will lead me to life's end. 
No blossomed hope, no withered vow, no thorn 



LIBER AJ10BIS. 91 

Of spurned affection, bring I here to-night, 

No hate, sprung of false fancy, no black dream 

Of traitorous kiss that sears both lip and soul. 

For though Love's war rings round me, Love as yet 

Holds but the suburbs of my soul. As one 

Who am not even a novice in your church, 

Unchristened and uncatechised I come. 

But wherefore come I, know this simple cause, 

And solve my dream. Such dreams are oft from 

God. 
'T is scarce a twelvemonth since I bade farewell 
To one, my comrade of collegiate years, 
My first friend, in whose friendship love grew strong. 
Three days he tarried in my father's house 
And then departed. On that day at eve, 
Alone I wandered whither fancy led. 
And as I strayed through lawn and grove, or stepped 
Out of the moon's white glory, and sank again 
Into the gloom of woodland ; line by line, 
Across the tablet of the dusk, there grew 



92 LIBER AMORIS. 

The face clear-featured of this late-gone friend, 
Eising before me as one newly dead, 
Whom thought decks in all virtues. Oh ! he looked 
Like the strong morning sun, — a power full-sphered 
For knowledge and for action ; no gay god 
Of gold and ivory soothed with flute and lyre, 
But like some iron-moulded man, whom Thor 
Himself might well have hammered out with storms 
And clothed in cloud and lightning. Such seemed lie, 
And each remembered word of his seemed part 
Of what he was ; as thus, when he w^ould say 
That man's chief end on earth should ever be 
To know and do, and by such steps to climb 
Into the clefts of power. Thus in mine eyes 
He shone above me, and he looked so large 
Through the warm clinging mists of memory, 
High, unattainable as the sun in heaven. 
Then wearied I sank down, and leaned against 
The many-centuried trunk of a huge tree ; 
And slumbering there I dreamed, and in my dream 



LIBER AMORIS. 93 

I saw the round great moon sail slowly down 
Like to a silver galley, in whose arched stern, 
As in a fanlike shell, two figures couched, 
Each with his hand upon the helm. The one 
Was pale and cold, clothed in a lucent veil 
Sprinkled with stellar lights ; the other showed 
A body naked, all of ruddy flame, 
And on his brow burned the sole star of morn. 
The first said ; ' I am Thought ; and but for me 
This mate of mine would perish self-consumed.' 
But the other, kindling, answered ; ' I am Love ; 
He cannot leave me, or he dies for cold.' 
Then both cried ; ( Seeing thou must sail with us, 
Choose, therefore, which of us shall hold this helm.' 
And I chose him whose body was all flame, 
Who, beckoning, took the helm, and I awoke." 

Sir Dorian ended. Whereupon the queen 
Sent forth her soft command that he should go 
Out of the hall of audience, while her court 



94 LIBER AMORIS. 

Conferred in gentle parle and brief debate. 
This done, the young knight stood a second time 
Before the queen ; and when great silence came 
On seat and stall, she raised her eyes and spake ; 

" Thrice happy must we deem his lot, fair Sir, 
Who not alone with lance and touch of harp 
Can clear a wide way through the mouths of men 
For his young name, but who can also choose 
By his sole self such guides to lordliest life, 
As thou. For as our dreams are, such are we. 
Our dreams are but the mirrors of ourselves ; 
We shape in thought what soon we dress in deeds. 
And what we daily do within the heart 
We grow to be. Our visions are ourselves. 
But touching those two shapes which thou didst 

see, 
Be this the interpretation, these the thoughts 
Which Heaven perchance would send thee. Not the 

sun, 



LIBER AMORIS. 95 

Not such as thou didst vision forth thy friend, 
Not Knowledge, nor high Action, as men hold, 
Nor Power drawn out through these, is Life's chief 

crown. 
Love's rainbow-sweep o'erarches loftier things 
Than aught we know or do. Oh ! what is Knowledge 
But fruitless garnered grain within the mind, 
Unless wrought out into some pleasant food 
For Thought to feed on ? Lo, all Knowledge dies, 
But Thought abides eternal. What we know, 
We never truly know till it be brought 
Within us, born as 't were a second time 
And imaged in ourselves. Then, even as sunlight 
Comes purer back in moonlight, so with man 
Knowledge reflected is Philosophy. 
Yea, and as Thought is always more than Knowledge, 
So is Love higher than work and all things done. 
For, whom w r e love we labor for, and whom 
We labor for we learn at last to love. 
Some souls are moonlike, others like the sun, 



96 LIBER AMOBIS. 

And every life and shape that dawns on earth 
Is but the shadow of some mightier life 
That shines elsewhere for ever. Dost thou say, 
Thy friend did seem the sun ? Ah ! surely then 
Thy soul, Sir Dorian, hadst thou known thyself, 
Was liker to the moon, which stooping low 
Came near thee on that night, as though she sought 
To find in thee some reflex of herself. 
But further, when thou chosest Love o'er Thought 
As holder of Life's helm, I thus would warn thee. 
Say not with many who come hither ; ' Love 
Must live for his own sake, and so be served.' 
Hear me, Sir Dorian : If the love within thee, 
However holy, live for its own sake 
More than for those it loves, oh then farewell 
Love's triumph over death, farewell Love's last 
Fidelity made mightier by despair, 
Farewell the faith that follows its lost star 
Down through hell's whirlpools and great gulfs of 
night ! 



LIBER AMORIS. 97 

Love living for himself is but a dead 

Kingdomless God shorn of his deity. 

If those we love be less than Love, what follows ? 

One dies, we say ; and soon another is sought 

To serve as fuel to the hungry flame 

That recks not how it feedeth, so it live. 

Therefore our court ordains that every one, 

Swearing allegiance to its laws, shall link 

His love and thought to one sweet name, which he 

Shall cherish unprofaned, and so make known 

Before us, ere a year has run its round. 

Love must bind Thought in links of gold, and Thought 

Must call up every Dream of glorious wing 

To build about that name, and shrine it close 

With hallowing splendor, till its sound has grown 

Like God's voice in the soul. Thus loving one 

Thou mayest love many, and rise toward Life's new 

morn. 
Such haply was the meaning of thy shield 
And the blue changing sky portrayed therein. 



98 LIBER AMORIS. 

But now go forth ; no longer needst thou stay ; 

Go, and God speed thee ! More if thou wouldst know, 

Or if my farewell words might lay one law 

On thy departing steps, this shalt thou do ; 

Take thou the travelling staff and black rough robe 

And leathern girdle such as pilgrims wear, 

And steer thy footsteps to Thuringia's land. 

There in its forest border thou shalt find 

The dweller of an ancient hermitage, 

The slow-paced shadow of its shades, a man 

Of power and ministering gentleness, 

Of holy heat, but calm persistent strength, 

Grave-tongued and of most comfortable words ; 

A searcher of all secrets, a deep seer 

Through the star-motioned mazes of men's lives. 

A gift he hath of prophecy, and he knows 

The heart of Love. His thoughts are God's. But 

now 
Before thou goest, kneel and swear ; then rise 
Love's bondsman and a vassal of his court." 



LIBER AMORIS. 99 

So Dorian knelt and took Love's vow, and kissed 
Christ's holy book ; then rose and rode away. 

Hast thou not, Basil, often called on faith 
To flatter fancy when she sweetly told, 
How somewhere in this earth, beyond the din 
Of traffickers and courtiers, there lives yet 
Some isle or valley or woodland wilderness, 
Eich in the relics of that innocent age 
"When men were more like Gods, and Gods like 

men, 
And when Gods walked with men, nor sat aloof 
Looking at earth as at an alien star, 
But came so near, that stream and plant and 

bird, 
Beast, Man, and God, all felt, in woe or weal, 
In strength or sickness, one inseparate life ? 
In such a land, and deep within the bourn 
Of its life-teeming, self-sequestered shades, 
Did Dorian stay his steps. It was a place 



100 LIBER AMORIS. 

Of verdurous glades, the realm of sheep and deer 
And squirrels and all gentle birds and beasts, 
And great oaks girt with mistletoe, whose growths 
Had long outrun the pruning hands of Time, 
Their ancient forester, who slept in peace 
Beneath them ; and their arms, old as the heavens, 
Seemed holding up each star in its bright place, 
While, shod with moss, their feet were footstool'd 

on 
The dark roots of the world. And there were dells 
Deep-gloomed, and oozy grots where goat-foot shapes 
Sprawled out their shaggy strength and dozed and 

dropped 
Their half-blown reed-notes down their mossy 

beards. 
And there were thickets thronged with phantom 

fears, 
And hollow places haunted by grey dreams 
And aspirations of half-shapen lives, 
And lairs, from out of which seemed issuing 



LIBER AMORIS. 101 

Existences, Events, and Hours unborn 
With Prophecies of yet unhistoriecl years 
And all beginnings of strange things to come. 

Passing through these as through a vestibule 
Dim-lighted, he sank down into a lawn 
Columned on either side with double rank 
Of giant elms, that mingling in the midst 
Wrought high a leafy minster-gloom with boughs 
Upspringing in steep fountains of green spray. 
There at the farther end, reared altar-wise, 
Gleamed a small temple-front ; and from before it 
A pebble-fretted stream through the mid lawn 
Pan murmuring like a clear small harp, or fell 
In a flute's falling tone. And here were swells 
Of fresh turf tapestried with primroses 
And violets, — the innocent bridal beds 
Of elves and fays on sweet midsummers night, 
Now near at hand. And here grew purple bells 
To ring the faery chimes when they were wed, 



102 LIBER AMORIS. 

And yellow cup-like flowers to glad their feast 
With holy dew, the vintage of the stars. 

" This is in sooth the place, and these the shades, 
And yonder his retreat of whom she spake," 
Said Dorian ; and with lifted hands he knelt, 
And kneeling prayed ; " Love, most mighty Lord, 
King of all mysteries, maker of the morn ! 
Grant me such favor in thy sight this day 
That I may glean from off thy prophet's lips 
The wisdom leading to eternal peace." 
Scarce had he said, when from a neighboring lodge 
Half hid in leaves a white-haired senior stepped. 
Close-girt in crimson cassock, he drew near. 
His hoary locks were ivy-bound, his face 
Was full of deity ; who came and spake ; 
" Lo, I am he thou seekest. Follow me 
To where yon temple-whiteness calls my feet. 
There tarry awhile, and I will speak with thee." 
And Dorian rose and followed him, and came 



LIBER AMORIS. 103 

To where the temple-whiteness nestling gleamed 

Against a darkening wall of shade, that rose 

Behind it as a rood-screen. Coming there, 

He saw how all the sylvan lawns were strewn 

With little companies that walked apart 

Or waited or sat silent on the grass. 

And some were calm and free, some wondrous sad ; 

Others were sorrowful exceedingly, 

And others looked unutterable prayers 

Toward Death, who answered them and said, "I 

come.'' 
Basil ! 't would have wrung thy heart with ruth 
To hear them weep. Of such there were full many ; 
Tor more than we take note of droop and die 
Daily for some poor drops of common love. 
And far beyond the places where these mourned 
He spied through browner shades and silences 
A nook of greenery, where the birch sighed slow 
Her requiem of falling leaves, while earth 
Like a kind mother folded back full oft 



104 LIBER AM ORIS. 

Her robe of grass and whispered, " Child, thou art 

tired ; 
Lie down and dream awhile. In such a spot 
It were no death to die." 

But now a sound 
Called back his wandering glances to the shrine 
Out of whose dimness there rose, prelude-like, 
A slow-aspiring incense of soft song 
From sweetly-wedded voices ; and that seer, 
With sable pall about his shoulders thrown, 
And chalice in his hands, down-stepping came 
To some wiio waited on the lowest stair, 
Kneeling in supplication, and he spake ; 
<c Can ye indeed all taste this bitter cup ? " 
And they all answered, " Yea/' Then he breathed low 
To each some separate, gravely-cadenced word, 
And gave to all to drink, who went their ways. 
And slow returning up his marble path, 
He sought the temple-shadow, and thrice again 



LIBER AMORIS. 105 

He stooped o'er those that knelt before him there 

In supplication. But each time he came 

He checked his steps, as doth an ebbing wave, 

Still nearer to the place whence he came forth, 

And they who knelt, knelt higher upon the stairs. 

With every change of station there was change 

In the seer's vesture, as in changing clouds, 

That clothe the shoulders of a snowy hill. 

And as about the hill we hear each hour 

New voices and strange answers on the air, 

With endless alterations of the cloud, 

So issued he, that ministering priest, 

In vesture varying with each varying sound 

That woke about him. Now the pall was black, 

And dark and sorrow-laden was the strain. 

Now it was grey, and serious and severe 

And calm the music was. Next, it shone white 

Mid strains like sculptured thought and cloud-repose 

And sky-ascensions. At the last he came 

With shoulders clothed in glory of cloth of gold ; 



106 LIBER AMORIS. 

Then hadst thou thought that Morn was on her way, 
With songs that made all stars to sing as one 
And move in marriage-march to where Love sat 
Star-sceptred, and there bowing, all those orbs 
Shuddered like silver spray beneath his dawn. 



" Draw near," said then the holy man, " and drink, 
Drink of this bitter cup which here I bring, 
And listen what I say." And Dorian came 
And drank. Ay me ! a bitter draught it was, 
Bitter and shrewd and sharp as the salt scum 
That scarfs the Dead Sea shore. So sharp it smote 
Upon his lips that he grew faint, and thought 
That all the tears that ever fell on earth 
Had fallen, as through grief's limbec, in that cup. 
So thought he, till his own tears fell therein ; 
And as they fell and mingled with the draught, 
He tasted in their bitterness what were 
The seeds of coming sweetness. Then the seer; 
" It bites thee to the soul ; and well it may, 



LIBER AMORIS. 107 

And so it doth to all who drink hereof. 

Ay, and such anguish bring these drops to some, 

That when they drink they die. But Love is strong. 

And many have essayed this cup, and failed, 

And so have put it from them ; or if they drink, 

With painless dews they so benumb the sense 

Or syrup-drench the palate that they kill 

The immortalizing essence of the draught 

Ere it can touch the soul. Now drink again." 

And Dorian drank again, and breathed and said; 

" In truth the bitterness of death is past." 

The seer was silent, and his eyes the while 
Seemed searching through the future of dark years 
Toward something, which came nearer till it filled 
His sight with clouding sorrow. Then he said ; 
" Oh, fear not thou, my son, when with these three, 
With Sorrow, Knowledge, Contemplation high, 
Thy love shall wrestle on thy life's hot sand. 
For 't is with blood, sweat, dust, and tears of fire 



108 LIBER AMOR IS. 

That Love must be anointed and made strong. 
Oh, fear not, though thy soul be clad thus thrice 
In black and grey and white ; for these, all these 
Shall pass, and in Time's furnace change to gold. 
But if thou wouldst be great in spirit, thy love 
Must feed on more than on home-keeping dreams 
And those thy little heart-philosophies 
That serve thee daily. Love, if it would live, 
Must find out for its thought some living shape, 
Some shadow of Beauty as it wanders by, 
Which though he clasp it but an hour and lose it, 
Yet shall it work him life, if he love well. 
But see ! night cometh. Thou must hence to rest, 
If, as thy will is, thou wouldst hie thee homeward 
On early pilgrim feet the morrow morn." 

So spake the white-haired elder, and he led 
Back through the twilight lawn his pilgrim guest 
Into the shadows round his hermitage, 
Where in a leafy cabin floored with moss 



LIBER AMORIS. 109 

Dorian soon found the dewy dower of sleep. 

How long he had lain in sleep's undreaming rest 

He might not say ; but in that heaven-stilled hour 

Which comes between the midnight and the morn, 

But nearer morning, when our dreams are true, 

That senior stood once more beside his couch 

Holding a volume open, bringing it 

So near to Dorian's eyes that he could scan 

The scriptured leaves, which glowed as they might be 

The heart's hid missal, rich with rubric lore 

And sunset stains of blue and red and gold. 

" Behold the Book of Love ! " said then the seer ; 
" Take it and hold it warm within thy robe 
Near thy heart's pulses. On its leaves each day 
Great Love's invisible finger, creeping soft 
And slow, as with a sunbeam shall inscribe 
All things whatever in his name thou doest. 
For whatsoever through Love's eye we see, 
Or through Love's ear we hear, or in Love's heart 



110 LIBER AMORIS. 

Conceive or purpose, whether in thought or act, — 
Endures, and is imperishable and true, 
Growing within us toward that greater self 
Which lives and is eternal as the heavens. 
All else is but the shadow of a shade, 
A smoke when the fire dies, a thing of nought, 
Baseless and blind as a poor idiot's dream. 
Know, therefore, that whatever in pure Love 
Thou doest is straightway writ within this book. 
Look to 't ; for when Love comes, he opens this, 
And from this reads to every soul its doom." 

And Dorian reached both hands and clasped the 
book 
And safe bestowed it in his robe's black fold 
Near his heart's pulses, and so fell asleep. 
Then came the daybreak, and the first thrush sang 
To the still woods, Cantate Domino, 
Till every wood-bird sang in sweet response, 
Cantate Domino. Up the pilgrim rose, 



LIBER AMORIS. Ill 

And with one longing gaze to the East that heaved 
Its breathless flame above the trees' black tops 
He went forth toward the grey unwakened West. 
All morn he pilgrimed westward, and when noon 
Breathed hard with heavier breath on holt and lea, 
He sat him down to rest awhile and eat 
What his light scrip might yield him. Hungering 

more 
For that which thought should furnish, soon he reached 
His hand into the secret bosom-nest, 
Where through the morn he had felt the unwonted 

weight 
As of that book safe-treasured. It was gone. 
Through every secret fold and safe recess, 
Wallet and girdled waist, and far within 
He searched, but searched in vain. Then back he fared, 
Wood-wandering all the noon, and sought to come 
Again into that forest hermitage 
And that last leafy cell where he had slept ; 
But none of these he found. " Oh ! what is this ? 



112 LIBER AM ORIS. 

Does Love then leave thus empty and cold and baie 

The holy places which we strew for him 

With gold and incense, when we bring him home 

And crown him with our worship ? false Love ! 

Why wilt thou sing our souls from us, and buy 

Our hearts' fine gold with counterfeits of Love ? 

Giving thy broken cisterns for our founts 

Of living water, buying what is full 

With aching emptiness, how art thou better 

Than the fierce thirst for gold which drained the heart 

Out of that Padua n usurer's heartless side, 

To pay him back with grave-dust in both hands ? " 

Thus mourning, dark with doubt, he turned again 
Westward, and there the clouds of evening shone 
Like battlements of heaven, and a voice said ; 
" Be still ; why wouldst thou mourn ? All things are 

thine, 
Since Love himself is with thee, and is thine, 
Even to the uttermost limit of the worlds." 



LIBER AMOEIS. 113 

Good Basil, reach me hither, I pray thee now, 
A little wine ; my lips grow faint. And hark ! 
Two strokes upon the bell, and the low sound 
Of those our brethren that have risen to chant 
Their vigil prayer. Kneel, Brother ; and if I 
Through weakness may not bow my knees with thine, 
Yet with bent brow and breast will I bow down 
And aid their prayers with whispers heard of Christ. 
Glory to thee, God and Father in heaven ! 
Sweet Mary, pray for us ! Dear Jesu, save ! 

Look, Basil, look once more within this fire 
Opening before us, through its wide-spread mouth 
Of breathless beams, ■ — a silent field unreaped 
Of ripening sunlight. In its depth I see 
A valley flowing with the sun's clear wine 
Shed from his cup on twice twelve clays of June. 
Look nearer. Dost thou note how every drop 
Of the sun's warmth comes back and yearns to light, 
Incarnate in a rose ; how every bush, 



114 LIBER AMORIS. 

Border and plat and couch of wayside grass 

Breaks out in ruddy sparks ; how all the dell 

Is dropped with rosy stars ? And hence its name, 

The Valley of Eoses. Eoses everywhere, 

Of every hue whereof a blush is born, 

Of every tint that warms a maiden's cheek, — 

Damask and pink and purple and sanguine-stained, 

Bun in red riot and hold high revelry 

Up the sheer valley-thickets to those crags 

Scathed by the lightning's foot and black with storm ; 

Or down again they race through legioned ranks 

Of flowering hops and purple-streaming vines 

And out into the meadows. Eoses, roses, — 

A valley of roses ! on whose bordering height 

Dorian now came. There pausing suddenly, 

He looked below with thoughtful eyes, and spelt 

And read the landscape slowly line by line, 

And slow re-read it with a quiet love 

Like his who, lighting on an antique scroll 

New-found, explores the meaning of each sign 



LIBER AMORIS. 115 

And sacred sentence, till lie reads it all. 
Before him dipped the middle valley, warm 
With sunny pastures dotted o'er with sheep, 
That like small silver clouds paced slow, or paused 
In emerald heavens of meadow soft as May. 
And farther down the vale a mouldered bridge 
Cast its dark thoughts on the slow-comirig stream, 
And charming all the waters toward one arch, 
Drew it beneath the hollow of its hand, 
To let it slip in shallower, stormier flow 
Bound a steep hill's rough sides. Down the left brink 
A village loitered on, with red roof-tiles 
Peeping through lofty chestnut-shades and tufts 
Of garden bower. And hanging high o'er these, 
A sharp-toothed ridge ran always with the stream. 
The ridge was black with plumage of thick firs, 
•And, close beneath, a silver cliff tower-crowned 
Stood gaunt against the meadows. Tower with cliff 
Seemed one, and storming upward, wall on wall, 
Soared as an eagle from its crag, and stared 



116 LIBER AMORIS. 

O'er all the valley, and eyed one forest road 
That, like a maiden trembling from her hills, 
Hushed half her sylvan voice, then venturing forth, 
Looked every way and stole down to the dell. 

Down through this forest hill-path Dorian dropped 
Into the valley, measuring each dark step 
With some new thought, but eager most to learn 
His way ambiguous, and thence renew 
His onward journey. Lower as he stepped, 
Sweeter the fragrance of that valley came, 
Let loose on fluent leagues of soft warm air, 
The breathed prayers of those hid flowers, and sweet 
As are the prayers and happy thoughts of men 
Heard by God's angels. Mingling soon with these 
Came sounds of holiday and shout and song. 
Then numbering back his weeks of pilgrimage 
And counting all the days of June, he thought ; 
" This is the feast-day of the holy John, 
The desert's Baptist-Saint. Oh for a voice 



LIBER AM ORIS. 117 

Like his, to shake the wilderness once more 
And thrill its death-sands with the sounds of life, 
Till Love should come again, as Christ once came, 
Burying our woes and winters deep beneath 
The blossoms of the garden of the world." 
As men in talking touch on some one's name 
AVhom, they think far away, and all at once 
Himself the wearer of that name draws nigh, 
So fared it now with Dorian. For his words 
Scarce left his lips, when full in sight there came 
The very thing he imaged in his thoughts, — 
The village street beneath its chestnut shades 
With festival-keeping folk, and a long train 
Of those that raised their burthen of deep song 
And bore aloft like a rich-painted sail 
The banner of Saint John. Leading the way, 
A company of maidens, clothed upon 
With maiden meekness, moved to softest pulse 
Of ghitherns and soul-melting minstrelsy, 
Lifting their choral chant above the strings. 



118 LIBER AMORIS. 

Eobed all in white, with roses in their hair, 

Onward they came, like a slow-pacing cloud 

Tenderly touched with tint of dying day. 

And as one planet-circled orb o'erqueens 

All her star-kindred ; or one garden-flower 

Soothes the swooned air to sweet forgetfulness 

Of all her neighborhood ; or one blest day 

Calls on each after-day to dawn like night ; 

Or one king-dream blinds every path of thought, — 

Such now was she who, moving in their midst, 

Lighted their lips and hands with her soul's fire, 

The star and centre of her sisterhood, 

Her handmaids they, and she their queen in song. 

" What angel, spared a moment from her heaven, 
Is here ? " said Dorian, then beholding her. 
" Tell me, King of Beauty, God most high, 
What dream the rosiest from thy courts of sleep 
Came near and stood before thee on that morn 
When thy deep love designed a life like this ? 



LIBER AMORIS. 119 

What angel-artists of thy highest heaven, 

Who frame the bright paved work beneath thy feet 

Morning and evening, didst thou summon then 

To lay their hands upon a mould so fair ? 

Who rounded that broad brow to be the dome 

And temple of thy thoughts ? Who arched those 

gates 
Through which thine own blue eyes exultingly 
Look forth in hope upon the world ? What spirits 
Dipped deep their fingers in the wells of morn 
To weave that sun-fleece showered below r her waist ? 
Or which of those thy singing seraphim 
Smoothed out this velvet voice ? Oh ! when didst 

thou 
Bring all thy Graces with their Pheidian hand 
To such pure ivory-work of breast and arm, 
Or wave of affluent lips, which, closing, seem 
Wreathed like the little love-god's half-bent bow 
Drawn for the unuttered arrow of Love's warm word, 
And rose-red as the heart of Love himself ? " 



120 LIBER AMOR IS. 

While thus he thought, she, singing mid her mates, 
Came nearer, growing on his captured sense, 
And growing deeper still within his soul. 
Before her stepped with a sweet seriousness 
A group of fresh-faced bachelors, cap in hand, 
Turning them gracefully ever and anon 
To scatter flowers beneath her maiden feet. 
And all the throng fell back on either side, 
And sank upon their knees, and poured a prayer 
For Love's long blessing on those virgin brows 
Eose-chapleted, but most of all on hers 
Whom in their Godward thoughts they ofttimes named 
Their Lady of Comfort. Such her name in heaven, 
And such on earth to many a heart that mourned. 
Then, ere he knew it, Dorian too had knelt ; 
Full of sweet wonder and worship, he knelt down. 
Oh ! not alone to Christ's dear Mother, borne 
On blazoned ensign by her maidens there, 
Did Dorian then bow down, love-worshipful, 
And lift his holiest thought ; but to her face, 



LIBER AMORIS. 121 

As of an angel's, he amid the rest 
Knelt, and together with his bended knees 
His heart knelt also. Where was then the toil, 
The dust and travel of the weary weeks, 
The hunger and heat and pains of pilgrimage, 
The vigil-keeping sigh, and the wan thoughts 
That wait on loneliness ? Ah ! not in vain 
Seemed then those thorn-pricked pathways he had 

traced, 
The ride to Eomalin, and the steps forlorn 
Through the Thuringian forest to and fro ; 
For when our journey ings end in goals like this, 
Then every knot upon our pilgrim-staff, 
And all the windings of our wandering way, 
Seem as they should be. Who would change them 

then? 
Who would go back along the loom of Life, 
And there unwind the weft of finished years 
To strike their anguish out, or wish unborn 
One starry tear that shook down through our night 



122 LIBER AMOBIS. 

The shadows of a God-world else unknown ? 
Even so thought Dorian as his tears fell fast 
Upon his hands uplifted, which might well 
Cover his lids awhile, since now his eyes 
Had seen their heart's desire. Nor the first sight 
Of Zion's towers and all the vale beneath, 
Once trod by His blest feet who saved the world, 
E'er loosed the tearful and long-travelled eyes 
Of holy pilgrim in so sweet a bliss. 

So passed she with her maiden minstrelsy. 
And Dorian stood, and looked around as one 
Who, cast adrift upon some desert isle, 
Walks near the sea-foam wondering where he is, 
Or what may lurk within those woods and caves. 
Thus pondering, who stood near him ? Whose strong 

hand 
Now closed upon his shoulder ? Then whose eyes 
Bent full on his, as face came close to face ? 
Eupert de Lindenwald's. 'T was his indeed, 



LIBER AMORIS. 123 

His, and none other's. Oh, what greetings then, 
What long embraces, what deep joy was theirs ! 
And briefly Dorian flew on wings of speech 
Over his journey, and told its first small cause, 
And by what chance he thitherward had strayed, 
A wanderer bound on quiet quests of love, 
A poet-errant of the woods and hills. 
And ever as he spake would Eupert's eye 
Make its quick voyages 'twixt the speaker's face 
And that procession, which kept coming still 
With some new pageant, like a thought that flows 
In trains of many-colored images, — 
Knights, two and two, full-plumed and panoplied, 
Slow-nodding to the heavy-waited stride 
Of their caparisoned chargers, halberdiers 
"With dusky-feathered helms and tasselled pikes, 
Marching like forest-pines; and here and there 
The clanging stream of steel and steed would change 
To gentler bands, like peeps of peaceful blue 
Suddenly sent through hurtling clouds of storm. 



124 LIBER AMOR IS. 

" Sweet comrade, pardon me that here I break 
Thy welcome words," said Eupert, as he pointed 
To the gay retinue of knights that passed. 
" Mark well those two that, riding side by side, 
Look lordlier than all others. How they blend 
Their breath in earnest converse ! He this way, 
Whose gory-beaked raven waves its wing 
Black on his white-faced shield, is our liege lord, 
Bertram, the Lord of Engelstein, my master, 
About whose double breast an hour ago 
I fitted yon smooth plates. Two men he is, 
Not one, — not very good, not very bad ; 
Yet either of these he might be, had he strength. 
But strength he has not; so, like most weak 

men, 
He likes to wear the semblance of the power 
Which is not his. No passion burns him deep. 
He is of those who love not what is good, 
Yet is afraid of goodness when it fronts him. 
His strength is in the nearness of the strong." 



LIBER AMORIS. 125 

"And who," said Dorian, "is so strong, and who 
So near with his rough strength, as he who curbs 
That full-blood Flemish stallion at his side, 
And, as he speaks, holds down the russet flakes 
Of his blown beard ? " 

And Rupert answering said ; 
" That is Lord Ulrich, Baron of Lowenfels, 
Strong as the lion that ramps across his shield. 
And many, I ween, will thank their saints to-night 
When that same lion returns into his lair 
Of castled mountain forty miles away. 
Then whispering in low fears our folk will call him 
Thief of the mist and robber of the rock. 
For the small mind, while counting small things great, 
Counts oreat things small, and sees but what is near. 
But higher than the village-vision he stands, 
And far above the bowshot of their talk. ' 
No less than a Lord Paladin is he ; 
His is one finger of that mighty hand 
Which puts the diadem of the throned West 



126 LIBER AMORIS. 

Upon the Kaiser's brow. If they were wise, 
Our people would respect this Baron's will, 
And help these brother-lords to holier bonds, 
Long sought by both of them, in which my heart 
And my good fortunes too have no small share." 



"And who are these?" said Dorian, — "dames high- 
born 
I take them, — who disdain to go afoot 
Like all the rest, the knights alone except, — 
These who in garb- of nuns do pad along 
On their sleek palfreys, showing now and then 
A rubicund round face, too self-content 
For many secret hours of toil or tears 
Or prayer or penance ; calling much to mind 
Some warm-eyed widow flaunting her late grief 
In fluttering wimple and black Cyprus veil ? " 

" These are the ladies of the holy house 
Of Saint Marcella," Eupert made reply. 



LIBER AMORIS. 127 

" At Hohenulmen, in a neighboring vale, 
Their palace-convent is ; and thence they spin 
Daily some subtlest thread of influences 
To wind about this northern land, and win, 
With innocent sophistries and godly guile, 
Our strong, self -alienating Allemaine 
Back to Saint Peter's footstool, and throne high 
Christ's holy Vicar on the Vatican Mount." 

" And she/' said the other, smiling playfully, 
" Yon noble lady bringing up the rear 
Of Saint Marcella's cavalcade, who turns 
Her thin, raw hatchet face and staring eye 
Upon us both, scanning suspiciously 
My sunburnt foreign face and pilgrim weeds 
And broad hat weather-stained, — say, who is she ? " 

And Eupert, half in spleen ; " Ye South-born men 
Follow too much the judgment of the eye. 
She is the mouthpiece and superior 



128 LIBER AMORIS. 

Of those that honor Saint Marcella's name, 
The Lady Katarina, whose quick lips 
Are steeped in streams of doctrine ; and herself 
And her high dames are sure foundation-stones 
Of God's most holy Church. What if their rule 
Be not self crucifixion every day, 
Yet 'tis enough that as foundation-stones 
They hold their place and prop the Church of 
God." 

" Well sayest thou, Bupert," sweet replied his 
friend ; 
" The miller asks the mill-posts in his pond 
To stand, and do no more. But here is one 
I judge not by his body's visible veil; 
And yet methinks my spirit, reaching through, 
May read him as he is. What priest is he 
Astride his coal-black jennet, who so close 
Whispers the lady prioress and dips 
His ear to catch the droppings of her tongue ? " 



LIBER AMORIS. 129 

And En pert; " Oh that his good chance were mine ! 
He is the guardian of the village flock 
Of Hohenulmen, and the father-priest 
Of Saint Marcella's holy sisterhood, — 
Hornherz by name, of stock unknown, once poor, 
And chained in servitude to another's will, 
As I am now. But he was wary, slow, 
Self-confident, laborious ; always climbing 
Less by his native wit than by the shrewd 
Observance of those chinks in other lives 
Through which he peeped and pushed him into power. 
Oft has he said to me ; ' Two keys, we know, 
Are needed for heaven's gates ; but here on earth 
Man needs but one to open and seize all power. 
That key is Knowledge. He who knows the most 
Will ever be the mightiest. Know the world 
And rule the world. But of all sciences 
The knowledge of men's faults, and where they have 

failed, 
Is far the first and most effectual 

9 



130 LIBER AMORIS. 

To curb or wind them to thy purposes. 
That gained, thou hast their armour in thy hands. 
For how can Knowledge profit gods or men 
Or angels, if it clothe not these with power ? ' 
Me ofttimes thus he counsels, and by this 
He climbs where many fail ; by this even now 
He guides each whisper of those convent walls, 
And moulds the mandates there at Lowenfels 
Which drop into our valley ; and far in Eome 
His tones are not unheard in her deep voice." 
And Eupert looked once more ; " These, these/' he said 
Disdainfully, pointing to a train of nuns, — 
" These which come last and seem the least, and are 
Less than they seem, we name in village speech 
Our little sisters of Saint Ursula. 
Oh that the Saint w^ould look to such, and give 
Their bones a resting-place mid all those others 
By the Ehine shore ! So would our village rest 
From pious plagues which creep from house to 
house, 



LIBER AMORIS. 131 

Shedding on every hearth such fires as light 
Wild hopes in idiot breasts, and teach the low 
To wag the tongue against all faith and forms. 
Death seize on such ! But now let us go hence. 
It wants an hour of noon, and the spread feast 
Under our garden-trees awaits my presence 
And thine, dear guest unlooked for." 

So they went ; 
And soon were come into a pleasant place 
Full of sweet grass shorn smooth and flowing down 
In gentlest billows to the river-marge 
Bush-fringed, where the blue dragon-fly dipped light 
O'er the black wrinkled water. The slant green 
Was overswayed with fruit-trees, which had borrowed 
Strange fantasies from the shaping wizard winds, 
And stooped, and so forewent their pride of height 
To bring forth fruit for man. Under the trees 
Were tables decked with dainties and rich meats 
In quaint devices, and great beakers brimmed 



132 LIBER AMORIS. 

With foamy clouds, which hid their nut-brown streams 

Darkling below, and silver flagonets 

Flowing with Ehenish juice, whilst everywhere 

Mirth and Good-cheer and Human-kindliness 

Hovered on tiptoe, ready at each beck 

To run as serving-men and wait on all. 

There entering hastily, Dorian and his friend 
Came sudden on a group of girls, one knot 
Of clustering heads and gently-clamoring tongues. 
" Nay now, Doretta, not a drop of dew 
Lurks in the rose-leaves of thy crown." " And yours, 
Lurline, Theodolind, and Aloyse, 
Are just as dewless, though ye reached beyond 
The brook's brink toward those bowers that sip the 

stream 
And warm it with their blushing buds." " Lucette, 
Gerta, and Hilda, ye were earliest forth 
Along the cold fir-shadows, where the dew 
Lives longest." " Bertha blithe and Letta sweet, 



LIBER AMORIS. 133 

Ye clomb the castle-rock of Feenberg 

And robbed the cave-mouth of its red moist blooms." 

" And Fridolin and Eangold and Ysaie, 

We saw you when ye clambered out to the edge 

Of the Engelstein, gleaning the wild-rose there, 

Filled with the morning's mist." " See now whose 

wreath 
Still keeps its dewdrops, bringing luck in love." 
" Oh ! not one bead of the night's wine is left 
In all the rose-cups of our chaplet-crowns, 
Saving in hers, our Lady of Comfort here, 
Which hold the dew as fresh as when they slept 
Between the nunnery-garden and those yews 
Which think upon the dead." With that they all 
Came close, and caught her in their arms, and kissed 
Her lips and cheeks and eyelids ; and they said ; 
■" This is a miracle, and thou art worthy 
For whom Saint Ursula hath wrought this thing. 
By this we know thy lover shall be true 
For evermore. God bring thee such to-day ! " 



134 LIBER AMORIS. 

A moment Eupert stood, then spake ; and straight 
At his loud voice those maidens turned and looked, 
And fell to right and left from round her there. 
And as a fisher who has toiled all night 
Beneath the cold sea -stars comes with the dawn 
On a low rock made white with seabirds' plumes, 
And as he nears it, all the white cap lifts 
Breaking, and flies in flakes of wandering wing 
Hither and thither, and he lands and takes 
Some spoil unravished by the wreck-strewn waves, — 
So stood she forth ungirdled of her girls, 
Sweetest of all sweet things, the fair Eoselle. 
Then Eupert, gravely smiling ; " Sister dear, 
Behold, I bring thee as our guest to-day 
Dorian of Chateau d'Or, whose name full oft 
Has been right welcome here, and entertained 
With serviceable thoughts and thankful love, 
Long ere this happy chance which brings him hither 
To tarry awhile within our walls. But now, 
That which we oft have given to his name while hence, 



LIBER AMORIS. 135 

Give to himself now here, as friend and guest." 
And she with grace of mien most maidenlike, 
And the young summer in her face, came near 
And said ; " Sweet Sir, it is a pleasant thing 
To greet him at our hearthside who so long 
Hath sojourned in our hearts, as thou hast done. 
Now would we help thee banish from thy breast 
Those chilling dews of sadness such as cling 
Close to the stranger's soul, till thou hast felt 
That Rupert's friend is here as Rupert's self." 

So saying, through the garden-lawn she went, 
Leading her guest beneath a favorite tree, 
From whose green rafters many a purple plum 
Had dropped its ripeness in her hollowed robe, 
Uplifted for the fruit in years gone by ; 
And there she placed him near her kinsman's chair, 
Old Eric Sternbrand, while she turned aside 
On manifold ministries : to these, to those, 
Among the feasters. But where'er she went, 



136 LIBER AMOR IS. 

That pilgrim's eye went with her, and where'er 
His eye might journey, there she seemed to be, 
Like to a fleeting flower of sunlight thrown 
Here, there, and everywhere upon the grass 
As the skies shut and open. Near him sat 
Old Eric Sternbrand, his bewintered veins 
Flushed hot with vernal vigors, and his bulk, 
Like a huge viol's, rounding each great tone 
With his heart's music, rough and sweet withal, 
Like forest-gathered honey ; and as he marked 
The pilgrim's roaming glances, he held high 
His beaker of spiced brew, and spake aloud ; 
" God yield thee grace, good stranger ! Thus we greet 
Thy coming hither among us in Eose-Dell. 
Health and All Hail we give thee in this bowl ! 
Yea, were it never for thine own true worth 
Long known among us, yet for her sweet sake 
Who brought thee hither would we greet thee now 
With Health, All Hail, and thrice three times again 
Health and All Hail to him we feast to-day ! " 



LIBER A3I0RIS. 137 

And then all rose, and roared from resonant throats 
Their Health and Hail to him, and sat them down, 
Clanging their emptied beakers to the board. 

And old Sir Sternbrand bent him toward his guest, 
And thus bespake him ; " Threescore years agone 
My sister bare the father of yon lass, 
Conrad de Linden wald, — God rest his soul ! — 
A heart of natural nobleness ; erect, 
Steadfast, and silent as that pillar of rock 
The Feenberg, which his just fathers held 
Four generations back, till robber-strength 
And these Lord Bertrams came and cast them forth. 
Would he were here to entertain thee now 
Under this shade where he would sit, when eve 
Thawed loose his iron hand from round the hammer, 
Which glowed all day from strokes on cuisse and casque 
And hauberk, forged for those w4io wrought him ill ! 
Ah God, thou knowest that blessed are the strong ! 
For they, and not l the meek, inherit the earth' 



138 LIBER AM ORIS. 

But, as I said, I would my sister's son, 
The father of yon girl, were now alive 
And here as goodman of the house ; for then 
With lighter-w T innow T ing breath her heart's blithe pulse 
Would come and go ; then Sleep with speedier wing 
Would kiss the tearless pillow of her cheek 
Night after night. But now a heavy lot 
Is hers, and heavier than her soul can bear. 
What w T ith Lord Ulrich's matrimonial hand 
Thrust ever in her face ; what with his threats, 
This Lord of Engelstein's, who storms and swears, — 
' Thou art my ward and vassal, and I thy liege 
Will wife thee where I will, and make thy body 
The bond betwixt my childless flesh and his, 
The Lord of Lowenf els,' — ay, what with these, 
God wot she hath enough ! But then there comes 
Her brother Bupert's daily-darkening frown, 
He saying, ' This thy selfish, obdurate will 
Keeps me in bondage to an armourer's bench, 
When I might walk foot-free as castellan 



LIBER AMOBIS. 139 

At Lowenfels, and mount thence into power. 5 

He would relent ; but hourly at his ear 

Comes whispering, Satan-like, that cleric churl 

Hornherz, a busy, mischief-making man, 

Born of the baser kind, and bent on rule, 

Stubborn, contentious, with his rooting snout 

And ready tusk tramping his neighbors' fields, 

To leave but scars and malisons behind. 

Nor does he work alone, from day to day 

Planting his thorns across our valley-paths 

Of pastoral peace. Each scheme he sows, is watered 

By those rich lady-nuns of Saint Marcella, 

High born, w T ell fed, and delicately clothed, 

Who seem too nice, methinks, for God himself 

With their small mincing speech and tones drawled-out 

In languishing disdain, w T ho eye with scorn 

Our homelike and hearth-loving German saints 

And everyday Madonnas, girt for toil, 

That ask for nothing but the homespun gown 

Of strong plain virtues, without ecstasies 



140 LIBER AMORIS. 

And swoons and vanishing palms of Paradise. 
The Court of Rome, but not God's Church of Rome, 
Pricks the proud current of their blood. To suit 
Such Roman dames all should be Roman here, — 
Saints of the Roman sort and Roman name, 
Saints cut by Roman pattern, painted, gilt, 
Draped, and bedizened in right Roman style. 
And priests should rule, and all ungarlanded 
Caesar himself should fare on foot, and bow 
And peacock-fan some Pontiff who ascends 
The chariot -chair of empire. These are they 
Which hate our sisters of Saint Ursula, 
Because they love the people and would break 
All pillared wrongs, and build from such anew 
The slow-redeeming charities of Time. 
And in this toil of theirs they drink much strength 
From that bright band of maidens whom thou sawest 
Leading the rose-crowned festival-song this morn, 
But most of all from her w^ho, though she be 
Of my own kindred, yet I speak the truth, 



LIBER AMORIS. 141 

Walks the unconscious queen among her fellows. 
And though her- face has never lighted yet 
The fortieth milestone from her father's door, 
Nor her soft tongue been filed on the fine modes 
And polished parley of great courts, yet she, 
Bred in all gentleness of thought and deed 
And in the knowledge of the fairest things 
And in sweet arts and delicate ways of love, 
Could shine in courts and cities as the light 
Of morning on the hills. And hence those dames 
Of Hohenulmen hate her, even for this 
That she excels them ; and her brightness grows 
The target for their hell-shafts. She the while 
Shrinks not, but fronts the enemies of the peace 
Of those who bred her in their nunnery-school 
To such rare beauty that they well might seem 
To have framed her as a cunning armourer doth, 
Who fashions a fair buckler from pure love 
Of the fair thing itself, and puts therein 
Figures and elfin-work of stem and flower 



142 LIBER AMORIS. 

And his much love and thought besides, and smooths 

Its mirror to his smiles, and makes it fit 

To be a miracle for the halls of kings ; 

And so it hangs above him, till sore need 

Brings the bright work a buckler to his breast. 

Even such a buckler beautiful and bright 

Is she, uplifted in her loveliness 

Over Saint Ursula's house, and those fair maids 

Her mates, and all this village of Bose-Dell. 

And as the fieriest billows of the fray 

Burn round the standard, so upon her head 

The darts hail hottest. But she passes on, 

And the darts fly and flame, then fall and fade 

Like smouldering autumn-foliage at her feet, 

Nor kindle her high spirit ever a whit, 

Nor leave one touch of fire on her sweet thoughts. 

And when these hell-darts fail, and shadows fall, — 

As fall they must round every soul that strives, — 

She walks abroad all bright, and will not cast 

Her shadow on other hearts, as some are wont ; 



LIBER AMOJSIS. 143 

But turning toward the darkness where it lies 

Bound other lives, she draws the veil aside, 

And pours her sweet self there, — the light of heaven ! 

dawn of day round many a darkened hearth ! 

candle of the Lord ! that conies and goes 

In silence like the light, and, like the light, 

Spreading its joy and beauty on our life 

In this lone vale, — the Valley of Boses named, 

But none the less a valley of tears, where tears 

And dews of salt must fall, and fall full oft, 

To keep our roses fresh. And so it is 

That sweet Boselle is canonized, and called 

Our Lady of Comfort here. Nor ask us why. 

Love canonizes everything he loves, 

And builds a shrine and burns a taper to it, 

Even if that taper be his last, with none 

To light his feet through death. But we, — we wait 

not 
For death ; we canonize her now in life. 
The children run and hold her by the hand, 



144 LIBER AMORIS. 

The old men rise to bless her as she comes, 
And the streets praise her when she passes by. 
And now God turn this omen of to-day 
To truth, and send her luck in love, and one 
Whose love shall last unwithered as the dew 
Upon her crown ! But if that may not be, 
This thing is sure, — that God hath long ago 
Put the troth-ring upon her hand ; and when 
The trumpet sounds, the Lamb himself will come 
And be her bridegroom at the wedding-feast." 

Thus through the noon talked he, this hale old 
knight 
Of eighty summers, with a sentence now, 
And now a sup from out his flagon's flood 
Of spicy breath ; and often, as he smiled, 
Ho stopped to stanch a truant tear unseen 
With his great thumb-like finger. And the noise 
Of measureless mirth, loud laughter, and low speech 
Made loud bv the still noontide air, went on, 



LIBER AMORIS. 145 

And merrily- singing maidens danced and dropped 

Their feet like falling stars upon the grass, 

Or in the pause the brazen-throated horn 

Heaved hard its heavy thunder-breath, like groans 

Of dying heroes and indignant ghosts 

Down in their hell's red night ; and then there rose 

The zitter twinkling into small quick waves 

Of grief, as slow with quivering pulse intense 

The close-pressed finger slid from string to string, 

Making it yield in half-told ecstasies 

Its little trembling anguish. Then o'er heaven 

There crept those subtle workings which come on 

Like old age o'er the skies, when skies fade back, 

Like man's life, to the flowers of second prime ; 

Such flowers as kindled on the quiet breast 

Of evening, long-desired of Dorian's heart, — 

Evening, that should restore his heart's best dream. 

Eose-colored air all- odorous of the rose, 

Breath of that coming balm wherewith still Night 

10 



146 LIBER AMOEIS. 

Imparadises earth ; the warm faint stars 

Panting forth songs unheard within their veil 

Of vaporous grey, which like thin lawn enwound 

The round moon's dewy lips, that rained their warmth 

Of silent kisses down in silvery showers ; 

And sounds that slipped from wandering, wind-borne 

harps 
Beneath, above, around, with voices heard 
Of high -encamping angels, who still fanned 
The dayfires on the dying cloud, and sighed 
Their watchword through the valley and down the 

stream 
And up into the darkling belfry-domes 
Of chestnuts, whispering low their vesper chime 
Of peace to happy home-returning men ; 
Amid such blessedness of sights and sounds 
That well might tune the chords of every sense 
To joy unutterable, did she return, 
She who seemed part of heaven and part of earth, 
She the sweet child of two new-wedded worlds. 



LIBER AMORIS. 147 

Across the green with gladsome look she came, 
Unbound from hospitable tasks, which she 
Alway fulfilled with self-forgetful joy. 
"And as she came toward Dorian through the shades 
That shook with bliss above her, sure he thought 
That all those shades were now the very trees 
Through whose first lispings God himself once walked 
At evening in the coolness of the day ; 
Seemed it his voice which made them, stirred their 

leaves, 
As sweet as when it woke unweclded Eve 
And led her back to Adam's aching side 
Mid all the chanting of the cherubim. 
Then coming near, she sat beside him there. 
Her heart was in her look, her smile, her word ; 
And as she spake, her soul passed into his 
And lodged within him, till he felt indeed 
How in past days of dalliance some but came 
To sojourn in the suburbs of his love, 
But she now rose into the temple-height 



148 LIBER AMORIS. 

And citadel- crown to reign there for all time. 
There sat he well content, and saw her face 
And heard her voice and listened to her words, 
While, as a holy hermit tells his beads, 
Night slipped a dewdrop dow r n each thread of air, 
And counted every prayerful breeze that sighed 
In sad slow supplication to the stars. 

So day succeeded unto day, so night 
Trod in night's balmy steps, and both went by 
With bliss for bliss. But whether it were day 
That brought her back to him from worlds of sleep, 
Or night which loosed her from the noiseless wheel 
Of daily service, 'twere all one to him; 
She came and went like light, which still is fair 
At sundawn or at sunset. Absent now 
From sight, or brought again within his feast 
Of eye and ear, no less his queen was she. 
Still o'er his thoughts the thought of her uprose, 
The steady helmsman of his heart's desires, 



LIBER AMORIS. 149 

Until she grew to be a second sense 

Within his sense, a soul within his soul, 

And was a part of all things that he saw 

And heard, and all things came to him through her. 

Did the sun laugh, it was because she smiled; 

Did morning's light wax eloquent with sound, 

It was because her words were on the air ; 

And heavens were blue because her eyes were so. 

And as a snow-clad sisterhood of hills 

Sleep in the winter moonbeams spectral-white 

And motionless and silent, till the sun 

Lays forth his level rose-light as a rod 

On their cold lips, which tremble and let loose 

Low-murmured morning psalms inaudible, 

So grew his speechless worship through her dreams, 

Till the pure maiden snow of her sweet thought 

Turned wdne-warm in the sunrise of his love. 

Eoselle was like the North and its dark night 

o 

Of brooding earnestness and silent stars. 



150 LIBER AMORIS. 

Dorian was as the clay, — the Southern day 
In color and flash and ardor of its air. 
O'er two such souls the light of love now stole 
As twilight o'er the skies of morn and even, 
Till each unconsciously had grown toward other, 
And won in part that other's excellence. 
And if thou askest me what could have drawn 
Two such unequal instruments as these 
Into so sweet a concord, — ask me, rather, 
Why run sweet waters from their quiet hills 
To toss within the salt arms of the sea ; 
Ask me why briny billows chafe to change 
Their salt sea-savors for the sky's cloud -sweetness ; 
Or why the blind and sun-sick Afternoon 
Faints for the starred fulfilment of fair Night 
And all her dark embraces ; or why Night 
Turns pale with anguish, pining for the kiss 
Of Morning's rosy mouth ; why like loves like, 
And chiefly in things that are unlike itself. 
Ask me why these are-thus, and I will tell thee ; 



LIBER AMORIS. 151 

Love, our high sovereign lord, hath so ordained 

That what is bounded burns beyond itself 

To win through other lives a widening w^ay, 

O'er which to move, drawn by Love's gentlest might, 

Toward Beauty that is boundless and for ever. 

So flew the days, until the moment came 
When Dorian would depart. But ere he went, 
They plighted mutual troth, and vowed to hold 
Each other in their hourly thoughts, and speak 
Each other's name to none save God alone. 
And this should be, while the sun's chariot-wheel 
Made one brief turning on its annual path. 
Then coming thither, Dorian would obtain 
The ratifying sentence which her Lord 
Of Engelstein must give, ere she could w T ed. 
This given, she was his wife in Chateau d'Or. 
But when in his departure he took leave 
Of Eupert, then he could not but observe 
His countenance cold and cheerless, more like such 



152 LIBER AMOBIS. 

As are ungently bred, or churls that live 

Mean lives in outland thorps and villages. 

With eyes averted and unsmiling face, 

He was as one out of whose breast had passed 

The native soul, and in its place was come 

A soul of darkness, when with scantling speech 

He muttered his " God speed " and something else, 

And framed excuses, how the horses all 

Were that day taken for Lord Bertram's need, 

And none in all the village misfht be found, 

No, not for one day's journey. And then he turned 

Away, nor even accompanied his guest 

Unto the threshold, as beseems the host, 

Who looks a welcome, though he says farewell. 

And thus alone, afoot and pilgrim-wise, 

Just as he came, went Dorian forth again. 

But wealthier than a fleet that might come home 

With all Golconda for its freight, came he 

Back to his father's house, and told of that 

Which had befallen him ; and his sire was glad. 



LIBER AMORIS. 153 

And when the year was wellnigh spent, he rode 
Once more to Romalin, and stood approved 
Of Love's high Court. Thence with his equipage 
He spurred into the Northland, and besought 
Lord Bertram of his grace to ratify 
Their troth ; and he poured out upon their love 
His sanction. Greater joy his had not been, 
If in that hour the hearts of all the world 
Had crowned him emperor of the East and West, 
Spanning his brow with rubied rim of gold. 
And then and there he would have wed Eoselle 
And brought her to his father's home ; but he, 
Lord-keeper of the happiness of hundreds, 
Lord of his castled hillside, and no less, 
Lord of her soul's dear peace, bespake her smooth, 
And prayed that she would wait a little while, 
At least for some few days, until her brother 
Should have returned from Lowenfels, where now 
He tarried only to arrange affairs 
Of gravest moment, that should much advance 



154 LIBER AM'OBIS. 

The slow-ascending and long-climbing steps 

Of Rupert, her kind brother, and not alone 

Hers, but a brother indeed to both of them. 

Then Dorian's heart, which, courier-like, ran ever 

Before his lady's wishes ere they spake, 

Agreed thereto. For ofttimes she had said 

That Rupert, when some happier issues crowned 

His long desires, would straight become himself, 

And making him a home, she then could go. 

" Then wait awhile/' she said, " sweet Dorian, wait 

No longer than until our marriage moon 

Has hung up thrice-three-times her white flower-crown 

Among the stars, those watchers of man's love. 

And when the holy sun of Easter morn 

Leaps up through lawns of light, and all things laugh, 

And Earth puts off her sackcloth, and the skies 

Break into singing, then the heavens shall say, 

' To-morrow these shall wed/ So wait for me." 

It seemed her words had hardly left her lips 

To fold themselves in air, before strong March 



LIBER AMORIS. 155 

Had come, before the nine-times-flowering Moon 
Had dropped her kisses in the crocus-cups 
And shed her white sleep on the violets 
And storm-awakened babe-anemones, 
Pale prophets of the spring. And he had come, 
The bridegroom for his bride, girt with a score 
Of youthful knights in all their bravery, 
And page and groom and one old squire besides. 

But he, albeit he came with heart ablaze 
Like Love's new-lighted altar, could not pluck 
Out of his secret soul what still returned 
In visitations of a voice which said, 
All is not well. Forthwith a message came 
From the Lord Bertram, saying ; ' That he in haste 
And heedlessly withal had ratified 
The troth-plight of Boselle to Dorian ; 
That his sworn brother in arms, Lord Lowenfels, 
Had oftentimes bowed down in his high place 
To woo this maiden in her lowliness ; 



156 LIBER AMORIS. 

But she had spurned him almost to the breach 

Of amity and the breaking forth of war 

Between them. Feuds like this should never be. 

And therefore as her liege and lord in law, 

Yea, in the place of father, he would do 

According to his pleasure in this thing, 

And give her unto him who claimed her hand 

As her first suitor, and as worthier/ 

And Dorian answered ; ' If it were his will 

To give the maiden to the worthier, 

Then would he pray that, in a joust of arms 

And in brave knightly fashion, they might prove 

Which were the worthier, Lowenfels or he. 

In such fair open field men soon would know 

Which loved more worthily, which had drawn more 

love 
Oat of Love's own rich wine-cup, — sweet Roselle.' 

No answer was brought back ; but every day 
From Lowenfels there dashed some pursuivant 



LIBER AMORIS. 157 

With clink and clatter along the village street, 
And turned up toward the castle. He too came, 
Hornherz, the mischief-monger, he whose hook 
Was cast in all men's waters to draw thence 
Some small advantage ; for he was of those 
To whom the foremost seat at the world's feast 
Is life's first aim, to whom the shekel's gleam 
Is more than all the glory of the Lord. 
And thus he dropt his fire on Eupert's thoughts ; 

" What vagabond, what stray tickler of the strings 
With sonnet-simpering mouth and funeral face, 
And love-locks leaning sideways, keep we here, 
To brave us with his brandished sword, and hang 
About our doorways, and defy thy lord, 
And dare thy best friend to the fight ? Ay, one 
Who in a trice, ere thou canst heave thy hand, 
Will filch from thy poor home its dearest prize. 
And thou her brother, thou her nearest of kin 
And God-appointed guardian, who wast born 



158 LIBER AMORIS. 

To turn her feet to profitable paths 
Both for herself and thee, — thou sittest still ; 
While they, who have no portion in her blood, 
Arm them to rescue her from the heretic hands 
Of him who flouts our holy Church, and spreads 
ITnfaith, rebellion, and the breach of bonds 
Among this people, naturally bred 
The lovers of loose thought, and lawless speech, 
And equally-measured rights to rich and poor. 
If Christ should come, no whip of weak small cords, 
But a full scourge of scorpions would he twist 
Against such ballad-singers, roysterers, 
And runagates from that paradise of fools, 
Provence, the death-hole and the spawning-bed 
For doomed republics and old pagan dreams ; 
Where Plato's banished moonshine and the thrums 
From Sappho's palsy-stricken harp have found 
A brief, unquiet home ; where the slime shoals, 
Eefusing sea-room to God's ark, the Church, 
Give welcome to the shallow crazy keels 



LIBER AMORIS. 159 

Of Gnostics, Arians, Ketzers, and the like, 

Poor men of Lyons, heretics of Albi, - 

Apostates and half- Arab infidels. 

And there they frame Churches and Parliaments, 

Whose one religion and sole governance 

Is Love, and Love forsooth their God and King ; 

And like most women-folk and poet-fools 

They dream that Love alone can rule the world. 

A godless, rebel race ! Already Prance 

Has raised the Cross against them, and ere long 

Prance from the north and Italy from the south, 

Two grinding icebergs, moved by Heaven's just breath, 

Will clasp and crush and hurl this curse to hell. 

And such is now the land, and such the seed, 

And such the stock whereon the next hour waits 

To graft this blessed flower of thine own blood. 

But no ! Lord Ulrich swears this shall not be, 

And even now with horse and foot he comes 

To spare thy hand a righteous deed, and take 

This alien's life, and pay thee too in full 



160 LIBER AMORIS. 

Thy clues for doublefacedness ; for he saith 

Thou anglest with thy sister's beauty as bait 

To catch his favoring breath, and winking at 

A venturer, thou scorn'st the hand that lifts 

The pall of a prince-prelate o'er thy back. 

Then as to this thy sister, he laughs loud, 

And vaunts that he has ropes and racks enough 

To stretch her uncompliance to his will, 

And make him pretty sport at Lowenfels. 

But such he can dispense with ; for when once 

This ballad-maker is earthed, then will she give 

What all these women give when death comes near, — 

A kick, a cry, and straight will kiss another. 

And, Eupert, think how Christ hath said ; that he 

Who loveth any, be it wife or child, 

More than his Maker, is unworthy of heaven. 

Then how much more shouldst thou prefer thy 

God, 
Thy Church and truth, thy sister and her soul, 
Yea, and thine interest also, to this man, 



LIBER AM OB IS. 161 

Close on whose footsteps walk sure shame and death, 
Whose friendship is but enmity with God." 

Darkly and fiercely as a fire that burns 
Within a potter's furnace, hid from sight 
Behind its iron valves ; even so the breast 
Of Eupert took such words, and fired them hard 
As potter's clay, within his working thoughts. 

meekest maiden heart of sweet Eoselle ! 

Love's w T arm-nested, gently-brooding bird ! 

What nets the fowler spreads around thee now ! 

Why, when thy wings were free and thy mate called 

thee, 

Didst thou forego to fly away where Peace 

Kept a safe song-bower for thy heart ? Love, 

How couldst thou snare her fancy with fond thoughts 

Of some last office unfulfilled, and lure 

Her kindred-caring hand to wait one hour 

And mix vain honey for a brother's lips ? 

n 



162 LIBER AMORIS. 

Are these thy wages, Love ? and this our lot, 
That we should plough and reap for thee all day, 
And, when night comes, that thou shouldst call us 

home 
To sup on ashes mingled with our tears ? 

Close to her chamber window see her wait. 
The keen March weather spins a whirl of dust 
Along the street, and straight is still again. 
From the near cliff and crags the dun shades fall. 
The night comes on apace. She shuts her book ; 
It seems asleep, and slips down from her knee. 
She takes her little lute and soothes its heart 
With listless fingers ; then she puts it by ; 
Then looks away toward her bed's glimmering white. 
sweet shut book ! over whose tear-stained words 
Thy lady's eyes will pass no more. O lute ! 
Between whose chords her fingers, like white lilies, 
Will never more shed sweetness. pure bed ! 
Against whose side she never kneels again, 



LIBER AMORIS. 163 

Leaning her breasts, which seem the twin white doves 
That Mary gave to God when Christ was born. 

From these now turn away thine eyes, Eoselle, 
Turn thy sad eyes, and look along the street. 
Thy love rides late, he should have passed ere now. 
There, through the deepening night, thy brother stalks 
Sullen and slow adown the road, and fades 
Through the thick-glooming shadows. What fell 

shapes 
And pitiless eyes now grow upon thy ken ! 
Death-harboring spirits, dreadful faces, drawn 
From every fissured rock and beetling crag, 
Throng all the hanging horror of those woods, 
Till the black steep down to the road is filled 
With noisome breath of murder-working spells. 

Hark ! heardst thou not his horse ? Thy Dorian 
comes. 
Hush ! Why that sudden stop, with scuffle of feet ' 



164 LIBER AM OBIS. 

And stagger of hoofs, and sound of muffled strokes 
And something that drops heavily down and lies 
There where it fell ? A rush from every side, 
And each dark window winks with instant lights, 
And the street fills, and clamors rise, as when 
A village has been roused at dead of night 
With cries of " Fire ! Fire ! " And she, Eoselle, 
Before she knew it, was outside her door. 
And on the tumult came ; some wept and mourned, 
Some questioned, some exclaimed, some, with swords 

raised, 
Flashed their unuttered curse, or looked to heaven 
With imprecations as they cried aloud ; 
" Seize on false Eupert and those two that fled. 
God give us but his body, and then let hell 
Keep his lost soul." With that, lest she should see 
Her Dorian's loose and lifeless length upborne 
On strong men's shoulders, old Sir Sternbrand came, 
And laid his hand like sleep upon her eyes, 
And gently drew her back within the house. 



LIBER A3I0BIS. 165 

There as she sat, her face upon her hands, 

She heard one sentence, like a sound of doom, 

Sighed on from door to door, from mouth to mouth ; 

" Dorian is dead, is dead ! " And Love within 

Her lonely heart made sorrowful reply ; 

" Is dead, is dead ; and thou art even as he ! " 

Then, as the dark hours darkened, every man 
Called loud upon his neighbor, and all said ; 
" This is the day whereof the prophetess told 
Four generations back, that in the fifth 
This lord should be out-rooted, and a rose 
Should climb and pluck yon stronghold from his 

hands. 
Now scale the cliff; spare not, but make an end ! 
Fling down his carcass hither upon our pikes, 
And tumble each tower a tombstone on his grave ! " 
Thereat they hastened to the armourer's forge, 
Eager to arm themselves, these weak, strong men, 
Strong in their weakness, strong by reason of right, 



166 LIBER AMORIS. 

To strike one last blow at the wrong, and die. 
But whilst they armed, behold, the tall cliff's base 
Broke sudden in a fringe of blossoming fire, 
A zone of torches, which unwound and left 
The cliff's round base, and coming nearer showed 
A hundred halberdiers full-clad in steel 
Glittering beneath the torches, as tall trees 
Sheathed in clear frostwork shine f the morning sun. 

Back to that hill's high fortress, whence they came, 
They took Eoselle ; but not till they had passed 
Over old Sternbrand's body stretched half-dead, 
And left their back-fought footsteps, every one, 
Wet with a passioning people's blood and tears. 

Before her lord, whilst rough hands held her fast, 
She stood, this Lady of Comfort, reft of all, 
All the sweet kingdom of her happiness, 
All the dear heritage which at morning light 
The sun had seen her crowned with, as a queen. 



LIBER AMOEIS. 167 

Poor Lady of Comfort ! she so comfortless, 

That even if a little of the much 

That she had given of comfort unto others 

Had then come back to seek a hiding-place 

In her sad heart, which once had cradled it, 

She surely had refused it as her guest. 

She feared not. What was now to fear save this, 

Lest she should live ? She could not speak nor weep, 

So far below all speech and all sweet tears 

Flowed her deep tide of anguish and dark love. 

And these two seemed but one. She thought of all 

The sin, the shame, the grief her brother had wrought ; 

The danger, the distress, and the despair 

Of those she loved ; the death and blighted hope 

Of him who was the husband of her soul. 

Of these she thought, — if thought that may be called 

Which is the present part of our own selves. 

And then she yearned for death ; as they that starve 

Go craving bread, so did she yearn for death 

With longings of wild love unutterable. 



168 LIBER AMORIS. 

And thus she stood before her lord, her face 
One sorrowful white marble, pale and pure, 
And eyes down-cast, while his jerkt words leapt forth ; 
' Of these, of all these troubles, she, even she, 
Was the sole cause. Three days were given her 
To muse in silence on her inbred sin 
Of blindness and self-will. If she should then 
Consent to be Lord Ulrich's wife, her seed 
Should be the heirs of Engelstein. If not, 
On the fourth morning, with an escort strong, 
Up she should go to Lowenfels, and there, 
Fast-bound by dire constraint, she soon should know 
The lion's bed and be the lion's bride.' 
She answered nothing ; or if ought she spake 
In her pale look that moment, it did seem 
As though the silver-leaved poplar there 
Before the dark door of her desolate home 
Turned back one white small deprecating hand 
To bless the wind that rose to buffet her. 
For in her face and bearing as she stood 



LIBER AMOKIS. 169 

There dwelt so much of quiet queenliness 

And sad serenity, unmixed with hate, 

Pride, or self-pity, that the men-at-arms 

Who stood around her scarce could stay their sobs, 

That broke the silence, when they turned and led, 

4 

This captive angel to her place prepared 

In that high tower which frowned on all the dell. 

And when the third day kissed her captive cheek, 
Since Love's ear trembles to each tone of love, 
Mirthful or mournful, then she heard faint sounds 
From those far homes beneath, and well she knew 
That they were bearing to the burial-place 
Her dear dead lord, the king of all she was, 
Had been, or should be, whether in life or death. 
And when the darkness fell, fierce clamors rose 
As of a people arming in their wrath. 
Soon, as she slumbered, came the castle guards 
And made her rise in haste, with only time 
To throw a cloak about her, as they urged 



170 LIBER AMOEIS. 

Her naked feet fast o'er the turret stairs 

Down to a darksome chamber, windowless, 

Clay-floored, low-vaulted, half-hewn from the rock 

Whereon the castle stood. And sure it looked 

A den of cruel pain, where many a wretch 

Had groaned beneath the smiling torturer's art, 

Or had been done to death most miserably. 

It was none other than it looked. For when 

The land was heathen, this had been the hold 

Of thieves and outlaws, where they stowed their spoil, 

Until a race of milder-mannered men 

Smoked out those hornets from the hill, and raised 

Its first grey walls, and feared the name of Christ, 

And fearing were baptized. But on the dawn 

Of their baptismal day an angel sat 

High on the cliff's clear edge, on a smooth stone, 

Like a fair statue in the light, and sang, 

Till the cliff shook with music, and its caves 

Opened and showed the faeries deep within, 

Who hymned that angel as their new-made lord, 



LIBER AMORIS. 171 

And Christ as their new king. Wherefore the hill 

Was named the Feenberg, or Faeries' hill, 

And the smooth stone the Engelstein. Thereon, 

Once every seventh year, an angel sat 

And sang ; but none might ever hear the song 

Save such as had grown perfect in Love's ways. 

In this low chamber, couched on bedded straw, 
With one poor cloak for coverlet, lay Eoselle. 
A waning lamp breathed faint against the gloom, 
Till the tired flame forgot its natural wont 
And seemed to shine with darkness more than light. 
For what there was of light within that den 
Came not from burning lamp or kindled oil 
Such as men's hands might bring, but rather came 
From her who touched the straw whereon she lay 
Into a bed of state, and poured a morn 
Of gentle glory upon her prison's night. 
But who may tell the anguish of her soul 
As there she lay, as there she clasped her hands 



172 LIBER AMOBIS. 

Close to that sanctuary, whence her breath 

Came back thrice hallowed from the heart within ? 

She called on blessed Mary, Mother of Christ, 

To save her, a poor maiden most forlorn. 

She called on Christ, who rose on the third day 

For our deliverance, to speak the word 

And loose her from that dungeon worse than death. 

Even while she prayed, there woke beneath the floor 

Voices and music and a measured beat 

As of small hands that hammered. And when these 

Had ceased, there crept a whisper through the room, 

Such a weak sound as might be somewhere born 

Between the silence of an evening dew 

And a rain's fainting footfall on the grass. 

And soon the sound became a voice and said ; 

" Descend this way, descend this way, Koselle." 

She sat and listened ; and again the sound 

Came, and again, until she rose and stood 

Over a place in middle of the floor, 

Whereunder, as she knelt, she heard her name 



LIBER AMORIS. 173 

Called low with hollo wer voice, " Descend this way." 
On the hard ground she knelt, and with both hands 
Tore back the clay, some strange strength helping 

her. 
An hour she toiled ; then came on what did seem 
A splintered coverlid of slabbed stone, 
Such as might seal some dry, deserted well. 
And when she put her weak hands to the stone 
To heave its weight, a power from underneath 
Helped, and with force auxiliar pushed, until 
By the fast fading lamp she stooped in fear, 
And looked, and lo, like a black throat it yawned 
Plumb down, a perilous path of ruined stairs. 
Then said the maiden's heart ; " Now surely Christ 
Hath sent the Angel of the Angel-Stone, 
Or some imprisoned spirit of the hill, 
To work me this deliverance.' ' And she, 
Feeling with unshod foot, as with a hand, 
Toward the first broken resting-place of rock 
And faithless footing for her trembling step, 



174 LIBER AMORIS. 

Stole slowly down, and dropping silently, 
Sank as a star sinks, and was lost in night. 

But oh, that was no night wherein she sank, 
Xor was that darkness, darkness unto her. 
For as God folds himself in visible shade 
Of tempest and black death, but feeds within 
A heart, like singing summer, all of gold, 
So while she felt her blindfold way, and dipt 
From shade to shade, from gloom to deeper gloom, 
There dawned from underneath a glimmering sound 
Of harps and voices, with a rich increase 
Of light that waxed in splendor as it burned 
Bound her bare feet and upward, till it touched 
Her white thin robe and close upgathered cloak. 
Doubtful she lingered. Was she still alive, 
Or had her spirit then, while yet she prayed, 
Stolen from its pilgrim tent of blood and breath ? 
That was not mortal music that she heard, 
These were not shapes upbuilt on brittle bone 



LIBER AMORIS. 175 

Which now she stooped to see. For where she 

stood, 
Kan a long gallery back into the mount, 
Lighted far-in with gleams and golden mists, 
Through which, like birds from sun-bright lands, pert 

elves 
Gambolled or danced with faeries of the hill. 
And far behind these, diademed with light 
And snowed- upon with glory, an angel sang 
Mid answering angel-bands ; and marvellous 
The music was. There she, with foot half-raised, 
Hovered, with half intent to enter in ; 
But when she thought of one dead face below, 
Of his dead face which soon the envious earth 
Must cover and carry down to shapeless night, 
She turned her from the door of that bright place, — 
Yea, from a shining seat by God's own side, 
Had such been hers, would she have passed that 

hour 
To find him, though he spread his couch in hell. 



176 LIBER AMORIS. 

Full fifty fathoms down her weak feet went 
O'er tottering stone and step, through breathless air, 
Through cold, through damp, through terrors of the pit, 
Till on her hands and knees she crawled, and came 
Into a low long cavern where she paused, 
And heard, like sounds of earth's returning life, 
The clang and clamor of the wild March wind 
Eound the cliff's base beneath ; and coming forth 
On the black night, she knew the place to be 
That cave, round whose red lip she oft had culled 
The rose in happy summers far away. 
Down from the cave's dark mouth she dropped, and 

reached 
A shelf, whence that aerial tower-crowned rock 
Shot its gaunt shaft sheer from the steep hill-sward. 
Thence all the way was clear unto her feet 
Through darkest night. For here on her left hand 
The high ridge clad with firs, that flanked the dell, 
Swerved inward from the river, and smoothed a lap 
Of pasture-slope, where gleamed Saint Ursula's house. 



LIBER AMORIS. 177 

From that down to the river strayed a line 

Of poplars, which, like chanters in a row, 

Bowed all one way and sighed the selfsame prayer. 

Beyond them lay the furrows dear to God, 

"Where yearly, as a sower unseen, God came, 

Sowing the seed which man makes rich with tears. 

Thither on wingfed feet, without delay, 

She sped her down the unpathed precipitous hill. 

It was a garden of low grass-grown graves, 

Where the trees, whispering in the summer time, 

Would talk about the dead in softest words, 

Lest they should wake them. In the midst of this 

Eose, guardian-like, a chapel which they called 

The Chapel of Our Lady of the Dead. 

Before the vestibule on either side 

Were two great yew-trees, warders of the spot, 

Twin bowers of twilight, filled with grief's own dreams 

And silence and strange fear, which caught and kept 

The shadow of Death whenever Death went by. 

12 



178 LIB Eli AMORIS. 

Up in a niche above the white-faced porch 

The image of our dead Redeemer lay, 

Half -swathed for burial, stretched out stark and pale ; 

And she, his blessed Mother, wan with grief, 

In a white hood and folds of desolate black, 

Eaised her clasped hands and sorrowed o'er her Son. 

Beneath them ran this scripture, w T rit in red ; 

" Yet have we hope, sure anchor of the soul, 

Which entereth into worlds behind the veil" 

Low on the threshold stone an old man sat, 
Heimgang his name, the village sacristan, 
His lantern streaming on the fresh-thrown clay 
Of the new grave not far from where he sat. 
Among the dead he seemed as one alive, 
Among the living as a man long dead, 
Till men might say that never was the time * 
When he was not ; he never had been born, 
And never was to die, — a spirit that moved 
Between the past and what was yet to come, 



LIBER AMORIS. 179 

The end and the beginning of the dream 
Of yesterday, to-morrow, and to-day. 
Thus he, a part of life, a part of death, 
Watched by the dead, or slept and watched by turns. 
Thou mightst have named him, Power-in-gentleness. 
A breath, a touch, and he would lightly move 
To quick but quiet pity or speechless mirth, 
Then would be still ; like some old willow- tree, 
Nursed in low lands, with stooping strength of trunk 
And playful lightning of its delicate leaves. 
When the dead came to him, he welcomed them 
With low-bowed face and sad compassionate smile, 
And laid them down with looks of sorrowing love, 
As when a mother lifts her sleeping babe 
And lays it breathless in its bed of peace. 

There on the threshold stone old Heimgang sat, 
And heard, but heard not, as the midnight storm 
Crashed through the trees and thundered up the hill. 
And here and there a sudden rush of stars 



180 LIBER AMORIS. 

Came 'twixt the hurrying billows of black cloud, 
While onward with swift wings the wind o' the North 
Bellowed and shrieked, as though a hundred fights 
Raged through those valleys, or the trump of God 
Spake its last word of doom to earth and skies. 

Then Heimgang rose and took ten paces forth 
To fetch his storm-tost lantern, and returned, 
And sat awhile on the same threshold stone ; 
When of a sudden, as though the northern blast 
Were the archangel's voice that woke the dead, — 
Out of the death-gloom, like one risen from death 
And in her seeming shroud, sprang forth Eoselle, 
And, ere he could arise, beside him sat. 
A bright and blessed ghost he thought it was 
Which sat beside him there. But when she spake, 
And, cold, crouched near him from the night's bleak air, 
He knew this wind-blown flower of perishing flesh 
To be Roselle, his dead friend's daughter dear, 
And straightway caught and wound her body warm 






LIBER AMORIS. 181 

In his great winter-cloak, and drew the hood 

On her unpitied head, and held her close. 

And she, like a poor stricken, sorrowing bird, 

Leaned near the old man's heart and was at rest. 

In a few short, sad, passion-broken words 

She told how God had loosed her prison-bonds, 

And wherefor she was come unto that place, — 

Only to see him where he lay in death, 

And, if kind God would loose her frozen grief, 

Only to leave upon his face her tears 

And last anointing from her lips of love. 

"And then," said she, "then, Heimgang, bear me 

home 
To the near shelter of Saint Ursula's house, 
Where I would stay till God shall call me thence." 
And when she questioned him in whispered awe, 
" Where hast thou laid him, Heimgang ? " he, with hand 
Back -pointing to the doors dark open space, 
Bent down and told her in low, tearful tone, 
How her dead love was lying there, within 



182 LIBER AMORIS. 

That Chapel of Our Lady of the Dead ; 
How on the morrow, or two days at most, 
Yon grave must have its treasure and her own. 
Then would she fain have passed at once within, 
And kept her sorrow's vigil at his side 
And watched with him, the living by the dead. 
But in that she was weak, she begged of him 
To grant her but a little breathing while, 
Till she should gather strength to enter there. 
And Heimgang answered, that in this brief space 
Wherein she tarried, he would gladly go 
For needful food and necessary things, 
Such as the hour did ask ; with quick despatch 
He would return. "But if," said he, "by chance 
(Such chance but rarely falls) this bell above 
Should move its iron lips and wake the night, 
Delay not, take this lantern, pass within, 
Haste to the dead man where he lies, and there 
The cordials are at hand ; apply them quick, 
And still apply them. I will straight be there." 



LIBER AMORIS. 133 

At him the maiden looked with mistful eyes, 
And read his meaning ; for she oft had heard 
From her sweet father how in tourney fray 
Strong knights had fallen by sword or thrust of lance 
Or truncheon blow, and lain a week as dead, 
To live again under the leechman's art. 
This, therefore, was the custom of the place, 
That all who ceased to breathe, but did not show 
By death taint or such veritable sign 
As none might gainsay, that sure death was come, 
Were brought in chest unlidded and laid there ; 
And near the dead unfettered hand were placed 
Cordials and rich quintessences of life, 
Swift flintstones for the soul, and round the wrist 
Was wound a cord, whose lightest thrill should wake 
The bell to airy tremblings. Such had been 
For many a year their usage in Eose Dell. 

Thus on the threshold margin, all alone, 
Eoselle de Lindenwald, the armourer's child, 



184 LIBER AMORIS. 

Watched, as an angel of the dead doth watch 

Near one loved lifeless face. And as she sat, 

Every fine spirit that reigned in each quick sense 

Forsook its faery throne of sight, or smell, 

Or taste, or touch, in nice nerves numberless, 

And thronged into the ear's wide palace-gates, 

To listen along those audience-halls of sound. 

She saw not, felt not ; she was ear, all ear ; 

And her whole hearing hung upon that bell. 

Then many a time the north-wind's hand would 

shake 
Those short, uncertain creakings toward a sound 
Which made her leap and, listening half in 

doubt, 
Shape her cold footing toward the dead. At last 
She hears the slow, dry straining of the string, 
And once, twice, thrice, the bell above her peals. 
Three steps toward the dark door ; the world spins 

round, 
She reels, and reeling falls like one struck dead. 



LIBER AMOS IS. 185 

Hope ! bitter balm ! doubtful bliss ! 
Who minishest our pleasures, ere they come, 
By foretastes given, — unhoped-for boons being 

best, — 
Thou takest from thy children day by day 
More than thy smiles e'er gave. Bright sorceress, 
Who hangest a star- chain round our necks to-night, 
And leavest us naked by to-morrow's morn, 
And poorer by thy needless-added pain ! 
Hope ! how dear to us are thy pure white wings, 
Not always for their whiteness, but for this, 
That they are wet with thy lost children's tears. 

There, there she lay along the pavement cold 
Of that pale chapel-porch ; the dead within, 
The dead without, and she more dead between, — 
She dead and motionless in sense and limb, 
Memory and thought, as those that round her lay ; 
But more than dead in hope, which slew her heart 
With faint signs of a morn that never came. 



186 LIBER AMORIS. 

In shorter space than that wherein the sun 
Writes a half hour upon the dial's cheek 
At noon, old Heimgang had returned with all 
That her forewasted strength might need ; and when 
He found her fallen and in such piteous plight, 
He gently propped her senseless head, and chafed 
Her hands, and raised her to a smooth stone seat 
There in the vestibule. Then, when her spirit 
Coursed back into her lips and eyes, she told 
Of what had come to pass while he was gone. 
And he, with lantern entering, found the dead, 
As it might seem, self-moved on the right side, 
And the dead hand heaved outward, and the cord 
Drawn tight across the shroud. And then and there 
Around the dead man wrought he diligently, 
If so be there might linger along his blood 
Some spark or seedling left o' the life forth gone. 
Bat he knocked vainly at a deaf dark door, 
A soul's forsaken house ; and such the word 
Which Heimgang brought her where she sat without. 



LIBER AMORIS. 187 

She heard it, and she straight became as those 
Whose lives are locked within a spell, and they 
Stiffen to stone ; for never a word spake she 
From that hour forward, nor cculd any know, 
Whether the sacred fountain of her thoughts 
Woke in one wave of beauty ere she died. 
Then the old sacristan in both his arms 
Enfolded and upraised her from the seat. 
Across his shoulders, like a drooping sheaf, 
She lay, with back-thrown head of ruined gold. 
And so he brought her to Saint Ursula's house. 

Thence up the village street he shaped his steps 
Stealthily, to where Sir Dorian's trusty squire 
Kept watch with two young knights for all the rest, 
Waiting the moment when their band and they 
Could ride forth safely from that dell of death. 
These three he summoned privily, and with these 
Came a wise man long deemed of skill divine 
In leechcrai't and life-renovating arts, 



188 LIBER AMORIS. 

Who drew from plant and stone strange virtual powers, 
And quickening effluence flowed from both his hands. 
With shrouded lamp, with scarce a whispered word, 
And pausing oft in fear, those five men wrought 
Bound the dead man from daybreak on till dawn, 
And on from dawn till noon they wrought, nor ceased, 
Till the weak vanguard of a vanquished soul 
Seemed slowly lifting its faint flag from far, 
And venturing timidly back to fields of life. 
There toiling, in that chapel of the dead 
They tarried nigh three days, but durst not bring 
Their dead man to the light and life of day, 
Nor make their victory known ; for armed bands 
And ridges of keen spears flashed everywhere. 
And Dorian, too, was feeble ; for the sword's 
Envenomed point had shot through all his blood 
Its mortal tincture, and the lethe-drops 
Left his wan thoughts divided, each from each. 
But when three days were passed, and tidings came 
That she, the angel of Saint Ursula's house, 



LIBER AMORIS. 189 

Was gone to God, and that Lord Bertram's self 
Was pity for the dead one's woes, and rage 
Against her brother, on whose hiding head 
His lord had laid the ban of death, which he 
Had scarce escaped by flight ; then did those men 
Bear Dorian after nightfall secretly 
To a fair chamber, where there tended him, 
By turns, the sisters of Saint Ursula. 

With thought requickening, came his questioning 
word ; 
" Where is she ? Is she safe, my lady dear ? " 
To which they answered ; " What thou fearest most 
Can not befall her now, for she is safe, 
And all is well with her, and she by this 
Can not be far from home. Nor is it well 
That we should answer or that thou shouldst ask 
More questions, brother, whilst thou art so sick. 
But when God wills it, wherefore doubt that then 
Thou shalt both see and have her for thine own 



190 LIBER AMORIS. 

For evermore ? " Thus they from hour to hour 
Kept from his heart the grief they would not tell, 
Till he had strength to bear it. Oh, vain dream ! 
To think that woes will wait till hearts are strong, 
Seeing strength comes not save where grief has grown. 

Meanwhile from wet calm skies there dawned a day 
Of memorable mourning. Even March 
Stayed his loud north-wind, and was oft in tears, 
Till it seemed April had o'erleapt his bounds 
To bring some gift of grief. On a high bier 
Of mossed wild flowers, overcanopied, 
With unveiled face mild as a winter sun, 
She lay, like a pale slumber-folded rose, 
Which, lost in visions of a summer's night, 
Droops, listening to the inaudible undersong 
Heard by itself alone, stealing like dew 
Down through the hushed fragrance of its heart. 
So passed she through the streets, by strong men borne; 
And all around wept sore, and oft the men 



LIBER AMOEIS. 191 

Who bore her paused, while many came anear 
To take last looks, and kiss her hand, and weep 
Unsaid farewells. And as the star of even, 
Though nearest earth of all the twilight stars, 
Yet, robed in saffron by the setting sun, 
Seems farther from us than the farthest light 
Of every orb in heaven, even so she looked 
Like something distant ; a familiar shape, 
Clad in strange beauty never seen before ; 
A spirit, not a body, laid asleep ; 
A soul made newly visible in the dress 
Of her sweet deeds and unrecorded dreams. 

Up in his room that overlooked the street, 
Dorian lay slumbering, and beside him watched 
Sister Griselda, like a flower of peace. 
And when she heard the nearer, clearer sound 
Of lamentation, soft she rose and stole 
To the low-latticed window, and stood there, 
Sorrowing in silence, as she looked below. 



192 LIBER AMORIS. 

Oft turned she round to look at Dorian's eyes, 

Praying that God would hold the gift of sleep . 

A little longer to the unopened lids. 

But her prayer's answer came another way, 

For as she prayed and looked, a new-born beam 

Of morning sunlight slipb across the lids 

Of him that slumbered, and he woke. And she, 

Seeing his eyes full-opening, turned away 

To hide the .grief, while thus he questioned her, 

And thus she answered, in alternate speech ; 

11 1 hear a sound of mourning in the street, 
And the soft stir of slowly-stepping feet. 

Say, sister, who are they that come and go ? " 

" They are our country folk. To-day they meet, 
As is their wont, to buy and sell and greet 

And tell the new things that men crave to know." 

" Look forth, sweet sister ; for methinks I hear 
The voice which is twin sister to the tear, 

And sobs of those that check the wavward woe." 



LIBER AMOR I 8. 193 

" Good cause have they to moan ; for bread is dear, 
Scant were the gleanings of their fields last year. 
For men not always reap the thing they sow." 

" Sister, what holds thee by the window ? Say, 
Why turnest thou thine answering lips away, 
As one that knoweth what he would not know ? " 

" 'T is naught. Some dead one goeth his last way. 
Father, Thy will be done from day to day, 

"Whether we walk thine earth or sleep below ! " 

"Dead ! Is it man or woman, old or young ? 
And by what name, still dear to memory's tongue, 
Through future memories will the dead one go ? " 

" Old, old she sank in sorrow ; yet she clung 
To sorrow till dear Love the death-knell rung, 
And, sighing, sewed the shroud and laid her low." 

" Nay ; for the old what need of so much grief, 
But joy, as for the ripe, home-garnered sheaf ? 
Nay, sister, for the old they weep not so." 

13 



194 LIBER AMOJtIS. 

" Oh, brother, ask no more ! It is our chief 
And crown of maidens, thy love's flower and leaf, 
Eound whose young grave our streams of sorrow 

flow." 

While yet she spake, with wet cheeks turned 
away, 
He drew his body's weak weight from the bed, 
And staggering to the window, there he knelt, 
Saw the dead face, — groaned, fell, and knew no more. 

Basil, thou weepest ! Let me also weep, 
And weeping bless thee for a brother's love, 
And these thy healing tears. For thou niayst know 
That every sorrow-drop which thou dost give, 
Falls like love's dew upon a soul which is 
As near to me as I am to myself. 
I was that Dorian, and Eoselle was mine. 
Basil ! Basil ! let me weep awhile. 
Forgive me, brother, that I can not hold 
In these last hours the floodgates of a grief 



LIBER AMORIS. 195 

Which ne'er was opened but to God and thee. 

This is no weakness, Basil, to confess, 

When such confessions bring most blessed balm, 

Like God's last unction, to my burthened soul. 

And even now 't was not my first intent 

To tell thee plainly I am he, this man, 

Dorian of Chateau d'Or ; for I had thought, 

In part to entertain thee with a tale 

Whilst thou wert watching here, in part to find 

Eelief for mine own soul. But thy kind ways 

Uncovered and led forth my lurking thoughts. 

Yet if thou wilt believe me, my brother ! 

I say thee sooth, that even while I spake, 

Meseemed I saw another, not myself, 

Beyond that flood of fifty flowing years. 

For as the spirit of one but lately dead 

Looks down in sadness with half -pitying love 

On the dead face, its own, yet not its own ; 

So look I back toward that which once I was, 

When these my feet first walked the ways of Love. 



196 LIBER AMORIS. 

But what befell me afterward, and how 
I came into this place, and how I caught 
Some f oregleams of yet higher and holier love, — 
Of this I fain would tell thee as we sit 
And talk away the watches of the night. 
But now the white dust of von dying moon 
Sinks, and the stars troop downward, host by host, 
In silence through the West. In their bright van 
Hark ! four clear planet-voices. First he shouts, 
The winged herald of the spheres ; him next 
Their crimson champion follows, then their king ; 
Last the shorn strength of their most ancient sire 
Speaks, and I hear, with slow dynastic step, 
God after God, faith after faith, pass by, 
Till deep within the fire-veils of the night 
Love answers from his yet unrisen star, 
And at his word the spheres all sing for joy. 



STAR-SONG. 



STAR-SONG. 



I. FORE-SONG. 

MERCURY. 

Who is this that looketh forth 

With the beauty of the morning, 

And the brightness of his birth 

Laughs my herald light to scorning. 
Like new day between the darkness and the dawning ? 

MARS. 

Who is this to whom I yield 

At his glory's far-seen shimmer, 

And my sanguine-circled shield 

Fades before him, dim and dimmer, 
Swooning death ward as a torrent-thwarted swimmer ? 



200 LIBER AMORIS. 

JUPITER. 

Who is this, whose light, like foam, 

Blinds mine eyelids blithe and regal, 

From whose ray comes cowering home 
Knowledge, my nndazzled eagle, 
As in sea-waves drops a tempest-stricken sea-gull ? 

SATURX. 

Who is this from whom I wane, 

I, a hermit pale and hoary, 
Dreaming o'er my thought's domain, 

I, the crownless king of story, 
And my grey shape sinks unsceptred in his glory ? 

THE MORXIXG STAR. 

I am Love, and sit as God 

On my silver morn-star singing ; 
At my music poured abroad, 

Every star, his censer swinging, 
Strews the darkness with sweet echoes ever ringing. 



LIBER AMOBIS. 201 

II. STAK-SONG. 

Where the Moon makes her nest 
In the bed of the waning West, 
And her veil of thin light through heaven is no more 
uplifted, 
We, sons of the starry morn, 
Out of darkness born, 
To the strand of still Night like showers of her pearl 
are drifted, — 
Gems from her quarried azure aglow, 
Eddying flakes from her endless snow, 
Gold grain on Time's threshing-floor, by the fan of his 
tempest winnowed and sifted. 

Lo, the Moon sinks dim 
As a bead on a goblet's rim, 
Whence the feaster has drained the last spark of its life 
resplendent ; 
And the sky's deep cup, down-turned, 
With light unadorned, 
Hangs hollow, injewelled with stars, above earth im- 
pendent ; 



202 LIBER AMORIS. 

And into the vessel of darkness flow 
The shadows borne hither from earth below, — 
A stairway stretching to heaven for Death and the 
angels on Death attendant. 

As a meadow-born mist 
Which the cloud-shaping Sun hath kissed. 
Melts earthward in showers whose many rich hues 
commingle, 
So the thoughts that from Man aspire 
Float up through our lyre 
And mix and flow back from our consonant chords 
atingle, 
And the sigh sent hither that seemed in vain 
Returns like the sound of a springtide rain ; 
For heaven and earth are one world, where none lives 
alone, and nothing is single. 

When Life plants the thorn 
Where its roses no more are born, 
And dark is the way, and the spirit is weary with 
searching, 
Men look unto us and live 

Through the power that we give, 



LIBER AMOEIS. 203 

And strong grow their steps to the sound of our meas- 
ured marching, 
And we shine like silver cells inwrought 
In the dome that bends over God's own thought, 
Strong-pillared in Love, lifted high as Love's self, in its 
infinite overarching. 






Oh, the music that rings 
From our harp of unnumbered strings 
When that Hand is spread forth which spans all the 
starry spaces ! 
When o'er us the world's great Soul 
Is breathed, as the roll 
Of a lengthening wave down the shore's loud-echoing 
places ; 
Then we sink as shells in the tide, we fill 
With the music and might of Love's deep will, 
As we sing of the yet unhar vested hopes for the far 
earth's happy races. 

Aloft and alone, 
All orbs are the wheels of thy throne. 
What space can contain thee, Life that livest for ever, 



204 LIBER AMORIS. 

O Light beyond lights of the morn, 
On whose tides we are borne, 
As we drink of thy drainless heart as out of a river ? 
Yet the least of the stars beneath thy feet 
Is the home of thy Son, and Love's own seat, 
At whose rise both twilight skies melt away in the 
smiles from his love-stored quiver. 

O bringer of dawn 
And of dusk to a world overworn ! 
Sweet star, twice-named and twice-loved, of morn and of 
even, 
Thou leadest our planet throng 
In the choral song 
With thy prelude string to the strings of the starry 
seven ; 
And the hushed skies listen, and back there rolls, 
Like a chant from a blessed chorus of souls, 
The low sweet thunder of answering harps through the 
deeps and the heights of heaven. 

When Night goes abroad, 
Assembling her senate for God, 
Thou kindlest thy song as a torch, and goest before us ; 



LIBER AMORIS. 205 

And when the winter nights wane, 
Thou recallest our train, 
And lightest us home with the banners of morning 
spread o'er us. 
Thou openest our house, and we shine as kings ; 
Thou shuttest the door, and the daylight springs, 
Love ! the first and the last, thou rereward and van 
of the starry chorus. 

All wisdom and worth, 
All lights and loves upon earth, 
All shapes that are born from our moods go hence or 
come hither, 
And angels, and Gods of the sky 
Grow old and then die, 
Born into new life, caught upward we know not whither, — 
Yea, the stars feel the autumn's hand and fade, 
By the breath of the spoiler disarrayed ; 
But thine, Love, is unwasted strength, and the lights 
of thy crown cannot wither. 



206 LIBER AMORIS. 

III. AFTEK-SONG. 

THE MORNING STAR. 

Dark and late, 
Lo ! I wait 
At the night's cloud-gathering gate, 
Singing like a nested love-bird newly widowed of her mate. 
Sable-browed 
Doors of cloud, 
As they open groaning loud, 
Show the black-blue skies down-stooping like the sky's 
God earthward bowed. 

See earth's floor 
Whitening o'er, 
As the slant snow's fleecy store 
Blots out all the form and feature and the moods of 
months before ; 
Like a face 
Whose clear grace, 
Darkening in the grave's embrace, 
Fades into a blind unfeatured blank, and leaves no 
wished-for trace. 



LIBER AMOBIS. 207 

He has heard 

Your star-word, 

And his thoughts, in sleep sweet-stirred, 

Now would flutter wings of language like a long-im- 

[prisoned bird. 
Hush each sound, 

As ye bound 
Through your dance's thunderous round, 
List ye, drawing close about you folds of silence star- 
profound. 

Back ye run, 

One by one, 

Fiery flakes of star and sun, 

Vanishing sparks from off the anvil where God's work 

[is but begun. 
Droop and die, 

Morn is nigh, 

Knowledge melts in musings high 

And in Love low-breathing, like a shoreward wave's 

expiring sigh. 

Die away, 
And when day, 



208 LIBER AMORIS. 

Peering forth with pearl-white ray, 

Strews the black hair of the night with dawning dust 

[of silver grey ; 
At my call, 

In gold pall 

Morn shall cleave her cloudy hall, 

And this soul shall tremble thither from its body's 

ruined wall. ■ 



PART THREE. 



14 



III. 



" Oh now farewell, dear Valley of the Rose, 
Sweet anchorage for my soul, to which strong Love 
Steered the one treasure-ship of all my thoughts 
And moored it there, as in a haven of peace, 
In life's young years, when Love became my king ! 
Farewell, thou first, last harborage of my heart ! 
Farewell, now fading backward from my sight, 
Ye lessening lines of woodland, steep, and stream, 
Thicket and rock and interfolding hill ! 
Dear scene, for ever dear unto my soul, 
Now evermore farewell ! For I go forth 
As on a wintering sea, and all the lights 
Die landward, and a tempest-gathering sky 



212 LIBER A3I0BIS. 

Shrills its drear sounds athwart the groaning shrouds, 
As outward, outward still, on wild wet wings 
My souls dark vessel ploughs a homeless path 
Ne'er to be measured backward by her keel. 
Farewell ! But whither, whither shall I steer 
My storm-rent sail ? What shelter shall I seek ? 
Or how shall I return unto the home 
Where he awaits me, — he who gave me life 
And thought and all things, — he who day by day 
Hangs his last hope on that which was my hope, 
His life on my life's issues ? dear head, 
Already stooping meekly toward the dust 
Where she lies low that bare me ! grey hairs, 
Turned early grey with love's unspoken grief ! 
This news will break thy heart. How didst thou build 
On these my coming steps a bridge of gold 
That should win back thy life a little way 
Toward youth's reflowering shores, long dim with 

death ! 
Even now I see thee start at every sound 



LIBER AMORIS. 213 

Of hoof or trumpet ; now I see thee peer 

Out through the green mist of the budding boughs 

About our home, or haply hasten down 

To bring the grace and greeting of thy love 

And hold my home-brought rose within thine arms. 

Still, still we come not. Then I see thee sit 

By the hall fire and gaze across its light 

Toward my accustomed seat, in which thy heart 

Thrones me, thy second self ; and in between, 

Against the light made warmer by her looks, 

She in thy fancy sits, like a fair moon 

Between two kindred stars. father dear ! 

Thy prayers are even as thy dreams, thy dreams 

As dust ; to thee thy son returns, — alone." 

" Alone ! " With that sad word I turned my steed 
From the last vantage-hill, whence I surveyed 
The valley's vanishing face. Then, with loose rein 
And slow-descending pace, I followed those 
My brother knights down to the fields beneath. 



214 LIBER AMORIS. 

And oft alone, and riding far behind 

My comrades, went I heavily those first days. 

I could not speak with any, though I strove ; 

I could not speak with them, nor they with me, 

Such woe was on us all. I could not weep ; 

But oh, my Basil, how the sea ran high 

Within me. I was like a silent hill 

In whose close-caverned breast the spring-floods groan 

And pray for utterance ; for it seemed that then 

Sorrow had waxed so strong that Love himself 

Must meet his drowning death in such a sea. 

And often and wildly thus I wailed alone 

In those first days, scarce knowing what I said ; 

"Would God my head might melt, and straight 
become 
A spring of flowing water, and these eyes 
Twin founts of tears ; so would I flow and flow, 
Weeping all day and night within thy grave. 
There, while the shape and shade of me should lie 



LIBER AMORIS. 215 

Close, close beside thee, haply thou mightst hear 
And half forget Death's dreamful spell, and break 
With one faint smile his seal upon thy face. 
There dawning back toward the grey borderland 
Of this our lesser life, thy spirit might touch 
And fold my spirit in its calm embrace, 
Soul within soul, and bear me hence away, 
That where thou art, I might for ever dwell. 
But if, Lord of all, this may not be, 
If in thy wandering worlds there is no place 
Where summer ripens what Love sows in spring, — 
Then hear me once, this once, and hear no more. 
Send me thy starry first-born Son, strong Love, 
That he may sing me with his words to sleep 
Eternal ; for my soul flows like the sea, 
And sorrows unto death. Oh, speak to Love, 
And bid him speak to Time, who serveth Love ; 
And Time shall come, and lay me side to side 
By her I love for ever, where my hand 
May grow to hers, and the strong grave may melt 



216 LIBER AMORIS. 

Both our unfeatured faces into dust. 

And from our dust, made sweet with what remains 

Of her pure essence, there shall rise a fount, 

Quick with rekindling pulse as from one heart ; 

And the stream issuing from our grave's dark bed 

Shall tremble into light, and all the brine 

Of Life's past bitterness shall then return 

To save Love's wanderers out of every land. 

There shall they come and drink the marvellous boon, 

And say ; f Behold the shrine of Sorrow and Love ! 

Here lies the Lady of Comfort, she who once 

Died all for sorrow, having lived for love. 

But still she liveth, still in death she speaks 

To our sad hearts her comfortable words, — 

Dear Lady of Comfort, strengthener of our souls.' " 

With many a wailful word like this I went 
By slow, short stages through those dolorous days, 
Still journeying southward. And as Sorrow passed 
Out of her storm into her sad serene, 



LIBER AMORIS. 217 

Over my sours calm -"surface crept the mists, 

And the doubts darkened, and a voice awoke ; 

" Lives there in sooth, except in thine own soul, 

This Lord thou namest Love ? And is He indeed 

A God, the Son of God ? Oh, if a God, 

Perchance some poor and powerless deity, 

Cast out of heaven, to beg from door to door ! 

And doth Almighty Power throw his regard 

On such as thou ? And what forsooth art thou, 

But a brief spark struck out into the gloom 

By hands unknown that strive toward larger light ? " 

Thus with quick changes to and fro Love played 

His passion-music through my soul, until, 

More active moods returning, anger woke, 

And indignation, and the God-born sense 

Of wrongs done in the world. And many a time 

The thought of such grew boundless, till I felt 

As though the light touch of a tiger's paw 

Passed through my blood. Then prayed I earnestly 

That whatsoe'er I met- with in the world, 



218 LIBER AMORIS. 

Love might not leave me. And when those young 

knights 
Who bare me company would oft exchange 
Their love for rage, I tried to pour sweet peace 
On their fierce wrath, and straight mine own was gone. 

We came to Chateau d'Or. The courtyard gate 
Swung back and forth, and creaked complainingly 
Its churlish welcome. Long we stood and called. 
But not a face or footfall answered us 
From vacant window, gallery, step, or stair. 
We stood and called. I listened. Not a rook 
Above the pine-woods, nor a peacock's scream 
Along the garden-terrace, made reply. 
Only the unquiet courtyard gate complained, 
And said ; " Gone, all are gone ! " Dismounting straight, 
I entered, and soon came into the hall. 
Before the fireless hearth, like its grey ghost, 
Old Huon stood, the steward of our house. 
And when he saw me, both his hands he raised, 



LIBER AMORIS. 219 

And heaved a mercy-begging moan to Heaven, 

And knelt and clasped my knees, and moaned again ; 

" my young master ! my master's son ! 

How comest thou here ? Art thou indeed alive ? " 

Whereat with no more w T ords, but groaning deep, 

He climbed the oaken staircase, and we came 

Into my father's chamber, where he stayed 

My steps and turned me toward my father's bed. 

All void and blank the bed before me lay, 

And desolate as a cold and cloudy sky 

Which the sun leaves at noon ere night comes near. 

Then on my neck he hung and wept aloud. 

And loud and long we wept beside that bed ; 

And ever and anon we turned and looked 

Upon its hollow void, or turned away 

To fold each other close and weep again. 

And when our grief abated, so that we 

Found words, then Huon ; " Oh ! hadst thou been here 

A fourteen-night ago, he might have lived. 

And yet I know not. For the heavy sum 



220 LIBER AMORIS. 

Of thy soul's bruises which thou bringest home 

Had surely broken his last thread of life. 

But how that thread was sundered thou shalt hear. 

'Tis scarce a month to-day since in hot haste 

Three horsemen galloped to our gates, and one, 

Alighting, bounded up the stairs, and stalked — 

Belt, boot, and spur — into this still retreat, 

Where thy dear sire had kept his bed three days. 

With darkening look he drew the curtain back 

That shaded thy sick father's face. And he, 

Thy waking sire, half-raised on his right arm, 

Looked up in pale astonishment and said ; 

' Eupert de Lindenwald ! . . . What brings thee here ? 

What news ? I read some trouble in thine eyes. 

Speak on/ Then he in sharp tones, hammer-like, 

Bang out the story in his rough short way, — 

How that thyself had perished by the hands 

Of those two lords ; how all the knights were slain ; 

How thy transplanted flower of Paradise 

Had drooped in prison and dropped into her grave . . . 



LIBER AMOBIS. 221 

Into the parted pillow slowly sank 

The sinking silent face. After long pause 

He tossed his thin hand thus, as one who would 

That all should leave him ; then he gave one look 

At Eupert, hid his face, and waved away 

That bearer of the last decrees of death. 

And I alone was with him to the end, 

And these were all the words he ever said, 

With these he died ; ' God, my son, my son ! ' " 

Pausing a moment, while a transient flush 
Of indignation lightened o'er his face, 
The steward thus continued; "What remains, 
I fear to tell thee. Not till he was gone, 
Not till that Eupert's hell ward-hurrying heels 
Had spurred his horse through six hours of the night, 
Did I, or any of thy servants, guess 
The wherefore of his coming. For he came 
And went the selfsame day, and when he went, 
He with his varlets, surely then he passed 



222 LIBER AMORIS. 

Like Israel out of Egypt; for he fled 

By night, and with such spoils as were not his. 

O my young master ! that vile hand, by thee 

Enstarred with Love's own talisman, was laid 

On all thy casket-gems and gold uncoined, 

To bear them hence in darkness while we slept. 

Michel, our page, the watchman of the hall, 

They caught and left fast-bounden to a post, 

Hoodwink'd and gagged, who trembling told the tale 

Of what had there befallen him through the night." 

When the first minstrel winds of winter lay 
Their wild hands on the leafless boughs, which heave 
In slow-drawn sighs, till all the forest harp 
Wails o'er the buried autumn and lets loose 
The sea-like music of eternity ; 
Then if perchance thou wanderest forth alone 
Toward the sad setting of the autumnal day, 
Across thy darkening spirit's instrument 
There comes the rush of sad and tender thoughts 



LIBER AMORIS. 223 

And wild regrets and mournful memories ; 
And lamentations and deep dirge-like airs 
Awake within thee for sweet summers gone 
And the dead faces and the buried years 
That never can return. All, all is lost ; 
Surge upon surge of tempest-driven stars 
Seems sinking to the tomb whither great God 
Waits to descend : 't is Nature's burial -day. 
Such, such was I in spirit at that hour ; 
With desolation darker even than this, 
I folded me about. What now w^as left ? 
Father and friend and love and hope and all 
Eeft from me, grief and memory but remained. 
In these I clothed my thoughts, on these I fed, 
With these I walked and talked; till sorrow grew 
To be a sort of joy to my sad soul, 
And desolation wellnigh a delight. 

And in those days, be it confessed to thee, 
Each fine, far-reaching tendril wherewith love 



224 LIBER AMORIS. 

Once fingered forth its way, and touched and twined 

All things it met, was loosened and withdrawn 

To undergirdle and upbear this heart, 

And wreathe, as 't were, its ruined porch with sweets ; 

Such was the bitterness that lodged within. 

Nor was it strange the soul at such a time 

Should ask to stay at home, and hide its grief 

In self-secluding quiet, when abroad, 

Through earth and air and sea and stellar space, 

I heard no longer, as I used to hear, 

Low sounds of concord through the frame of 

things, 
But one commurmurous roar of mutual strife, 
And cries of ancient wrong, and trumpets blown 
For truceless battle. And it seemed each day 
The dawn rose wrath-red on the sinful dark, 
The dark with judgment-fires rebuked the light, 
And when day died, night came to weep her dew, 
Answering with tears the sorrows of the w T orld. 
Then hateful grew the things that once I loved, 



LIBER AMOBIS. 225 

■ And hateful the sweet home where I was bred, 
And hateful the green woods and pastoral walks, 
And hateful ev'n the holy light of heaven ; 
But hatefuller yet the light of life itself. 

Then I arose and went from Chateau d'Or, 

Forth-bound on various ventures of the sword 

In Orient lands. And oft I sailed the seas 

On knightly service, wooing every chance 

For deeds of desperate valor, if so be 

Fate would unsheathe my spirit of this flesh. 

Eastward we w^ent. Many a fair-havened isle 

Heard our down-dropping anchor. Far I roamed, 

Fearless, through city and waste, and moved amid 

Swart-visaged men, near neighbors of the sun, 

And bearded paynims, and the turban'd heads 

Of Islam. Onward still from realm to realm, 

Like a tired reveller, sorrowing I passed ; 

Careless yet sad, I drifted, mingling with 

The masquerade o' the world. 

15 



226 LIBER AMOBIS. 

And in that hour 
Of ttimes I called on Death, and prayed and said ; 
" Death, sweet king full of most gentle grace, 
Inheritor of all ! where dwellest thou ? 
Where is thy sovereign seat? What coral cave, 
Made musical with waters, guards thy state 
Down in the purple darkness of the deep, 
Lit with the emerald lamps of nereicls' eyes ? 
Or dost thou couch upon some pendent rock 
That nods above the glen ? What perilous reef, 
Stone-showering precipice, or blazing peak, 
Or woody wilderness of poisonous weeds, 
Whirlpool, or smoky cataract, sand, or fire, 
Now holds thy presence ? Oh that I might know 
Thy hiding-place ! Then would I come to thee 
As to no famished, fleshless frame of dust, 
But as into the presence of some dream, 
A shape as young and bright as that which once 
Dawned over chaos when God smiled to see 
The rosy dimness of his first-born Day 



LIBER AMORIS. 227 

Lead out the prime and promise of the worlds. 
Thus having found thy dwelling-place, Death, 
I would come near to thee and kiss thy lips ; 
And having kissed thee, I would ask no more." 

Thus calling oft on Death, I turned again 
And sought the desolate home which I had left 
For those three years of wandering. What had been 
My gain, and what my losses in those years ? 
Such now my question as I sat alone. 
Far had I travelled, much had seen, much thought, 
Much sorrowed. Ay, but Sorrow had upgrown 
To such full-statured strength that Love had waned. 
Weak were his powers for lack of exercise, 
The circuit of his kingdom had retired, 
For ever shrinking backward into self. 
Nor this alone. Through all the world besides, 
Love's empire so divided and distraught 
Appeared to be, so small a shred remained 
Of his wide- waving oriflamme, that I 



228 LIBER AMOBIS. 

Began to doubt within me whether in truth 

Love were Gods Son, the heir of Life and Death. 

With such self-questionings I came at last 

For my soul's peace into a quiet place, 

A nest green-shut from noise, and named of men 

La Maison de Paix-Dieu. Leagues east of this 

It lay, a low-roofed home of holy men, 

'Neath the far-shadowing shoulders of great hills, 

Old mountain brotherhoods, with cowls of snow 

And grassy cloaks and foam-white feet that flashed 

Unsandalled down the darkness of the dells. 

'T was in the white peace of those lowly walls 
I first girt on the habit of the monk 
And bowed this head for touch of hallowing hands. 
There on the flagstones as I lay, outstretched 
And breathless as the dead that slept below, 
Over my body flowed a sable pall 
Funereal, and, while many closed me round, 
The Prior's deep-toned voice came near and spake ; 



LIBER AMOBIS. 229 

" Wake, thou that sleepest, rise from out the dead, 
And Christ shall give thee life." Whereat his 

hand 
Was reached to raise me, and the pall fell off, 
And I arose and stood, and walked among 
My brethren as a man new-roused from sleep. 
New life I felt within me, and new love 
Mixed with the old, and a new name was mine. 
Thenceforward was I called in common speech 
Brother Aurelius. Love, who can not die, 
Brought me my new name thus. Oft when I 

mused 
On the changed life about to be, and felt 
What Sanctities enround and wait upon 
Man's mortal name, to bind its bearer back 
To those sweet prophecies and maiden hopes 
Which first salute it, and that earliest love 
Which sheds thereon unmerchantable balms, — 
I could not part with mine, but still would keep 
Some musical portion of the syllables, 



230 LIBER AMO.RIS. 

Now sacred, sacred only for her sake. 

For had she not remoulded with her breath 

That name, and given it back to me more sweet 

With each day's christening dew from her dear lips ? 

Ay, by that name, or by a part of it, 

Somewhere along the valley-streams of Death 

I must be still remembered, spoken of, 

By her who drew me daily toward her light. 

How often would she playfully touch the word 

And harp on its first syllable, till it grew 

Full of new meanings such as fancy framed. 

The first and last sounds of my name and home 

Would she take up, and ring through changing chimes, 

As doth a love-embowered bird in spring, — 

" Mon or," " Mon orient," and " Mon estoille 

dor," — 
" My heart of gold," she said, " whose worth makes 

cheap 
The auriferous East and all its tribute dust." 
That small first golden syllable I kept 



LIBER AMORIS. 231 



And treasured as mine own when Dorian died 
And rose again as this Aurelius. 



Out of the dust, Lord, out of the dust 
I lifted then my voice, and thou didst save 
My soul from mortal sorrow ; thou didst free 
My sinking feet from death ; thou didst upraise 
My heart on eagle's wings, and bring me home 
To thy high citadels of stormless peace. 
And there I found thee once again as Love, 
That Love whom I had ever loved ; the same, 
But greater ; clad no more in weeds of black, 
With sorrow-dew and death-dust on thy cheek, 
But seated soberly in serious joy 
Betwixt a dead grief and a bliss to come, 
Mantled in grey, as best beseemed thy state, 
Who, like a hermit angel, sat'st aloof 
"With thy white feet o'ersown with daystar beams, 
Watching the dome of darkness pale away 
With promise of the morning. Thou, even thou, 



232 LIBER AM ORIS. 

Wert he, who then didst beckon me from far 
To these our convent-walls, didst draw my steps 
Hither, and fix my feet on this high rock. 

Love led me to this place. For when I heard 
That many men were come unto this hill 
Seeking what heart's-ease God had planted here, - — 
Men who had loved much, and, like all who love, 
Had suffered much, men who had found love's 

fruit 
Bloom to the eye and ashes to the tongue : 
Moreover, when I heard that many such 
"Were healed, I too grew whole in mine own heart, 
And being healed myself, I felt as those 
Who, having 'scaped a death-plague, straight go forth 
To seek the plague-struck, if by any means 
They may pluck back one spirit from the grave. 
Woodland and oliveyard and field and house 
I sold, and giving portions to those tried 
And trusty followers of my father's love, 



LIBER AMORIS. 233 

Hither I came with all I had ; the price 
I laid upon the threshold of this house, 
Myself upon its altar. 

Standing still 
In the first moments of my sojourn here, 
And looking forth, as oftentimes I did, 
From this high tower of prayer, lone-islanded 
Mid motionless, fixed waves of fractured rock 
And grassless hillside brown and white and grey, 
Hourly I questioned the new landscape's face 
To learn what it would say to me ; and I thought, 
As then I first beheld it, that I looked 
Into what seemed a mighty heart of stone, 
Out of whose shattered chambers had been swept 
The first fresh bloom of bud and leaf and flower 
As with a blast of fire. Such passion-scars 
Were signed on splintered pinnacle and bare peak 
Of basalt and black lava-ledges, trenched 
With transverse valleys, where the walnut pushed 



234 LIBER AMOBIS. 

Skyward, as though she would forget the fires 
That ebbed beneath her. But on every path 
Of desolation Nature's, kindness came. 
The slow-returning grasses whispering told 
Of reconciliation, and I felt 
What interchange of harmonies unheard 
Oft links the soul of man to the hid soul 
Of things around him. Yea, 't was then I saw 
In that stone heart the visible countersign 
Of many a heart about me, beating then 
Alternate 'twixt its new impassioned hope 
And its old thoughts of passionless despair. 

But I must spur me, Basil, toward the goal 
At which, with lips unharnessed, I would end 
This life-tale, brief as the brief midnight fire 
Tore which I tell it. Oh that my weak breath 
May yet suffice me while I strive to touch 
The event wherein, by thy sweet grace, God, 
Love came to crowned completeness ! Be 't enough 



LIBER AMORIS. 235 

To summon and dismiss in fifty words 

The unvarying story of as many years. 

For lives of lettered men and studious toils 

Chant as few changes to the external ear 

As a wan summer-brook. Why need I tell 

How, like poor shipwrecked folk, we gathered hope 

And made this city-circled islet shine 

As a far torch for scrrow-foundered men ; 

How we on this hill-summit sought to catch 

Each passing cloud of good, and melt its dews 

Into some secret stream, that hourly fell 

In benediction through the streets and homes 

Of the tower-girdled city here below, 

Which puts its white walls, like a woman's arm, 

About our hill's rock waist, and winds its life 

Still narrowing upward for our nearer smile ? 

So wrought I with my brethren ; no one ruled, 
But every one obeyed. And when two years 
Were gone, the brotherhood made choice of me 



236 LIBER AMORIS. 

To be their abbot. Then I wrought the more, 
And strove unceasingly that I might come 
Through Knowledge and high Thought to Perfect 

Love, 
And so come nearer to the perfect One. 
And since I was chief teacher of our school, 
I prayed that power might still be given me 
To teach, not mourn, but take all griefs and wrongs 
And hide them as good seed within the soul. 
Likewise I prayed that henceforth when the seas 
Of sorrow flowed amain, and waves beat higher, 
I might build higher above the beating waves ; 
As Michael, mightiest of archangels, reared 
His tall church-towers on the sheer cliff of Puy, 
Here in these valleys of Auvergne, or there, 
By the loud Cornish coast and Breton strand, 
Hung his house high above the surge that climbs 
And clamors in white wrath and wreaths of spray, 
And climbs and clings, but strives in vain to storm 
Those heaven-descended miracles of the rock. 



LIBER AMORIS. 237 

ye swift years ! ye saw me then mount up 
From height to height, from thought to loftier thought, 
From Knowledge unto Knowledge and new dreams. 
And I was as the colonist of new shores, 
Who, pushing hillward from the sea's rough marge, 
Draws forth his flowing fetter of long wall 
And turrets inland over crest and slope, 
And wins a kingdom for his name. So I 
Went ever building backward from the world, 
And upward into God. For I had thought 
That somewhere in the unfathomable deeps 
Of those cloud- wreathen valleys where the dead 
Wait in the mountain-silences of God 
I might, on wandering wing of prayer or thought 
Or dream or spiritual rapture, come at last 
Upon some voice or vision that should slake 
Each day's undying thirst of this sad heart 
For that one face I longed-for evermore. 
'T was then that I recalled those warning words 
Of the old forest-haunting seer, which said ; 



233 LIBER AMORIS. 

" Oh, fear not thou, my son, when with these three, 
With Sorrow, Knowledge, Contemplation high, 
Thy love shall wrestle on thy life's hot sand ! " 
For had not Love within me thrown his thews 
Bound Sorrow, closed with him, and proved himself 
Stronger than Sorrow ? Yea, and yet again, 
When Knowledge came with intellectual pride 
And challenged Love to match her cold smooth 

might 
In mortal conflict, had not Love arisen 
And won the wrestler's wreath ? Now, last of all, 
Uprose Divine Philosophy, and strove 
With Love until strong Love sank wellnigh down 
To small self-love and love's indifference. 
Then, then I learnt that Thought and musings high, 
And Contemplation and the starry dreams 
That Love enkindles, soon may lead aloft 
Man's love so far above his fellow-men 
That Love may turn to loathing man and earth, 
Loving but God, and seeing Heaven alone. 



LIBER AMORIS. 239 

None other, but ev'n such an one was I, 
And such had still remained, had not the event, 
Which now I will unfold, befallen me 
Some fifteen moons ago ; and this event, 
Showing, as in a mirror, my first love 
Imperfect, led me thence toward perfect love. 

'T was Christmas Eve. The slowly-mouldering 
brands 
Had strewn their wasted splendors o'er this hearth, 
Even as thou seest them now. The still mid-night 
Had heard the north-wind speak, and the dusk air 
Shook with its whirled white locks of wavering snow. 
I, as is oft my wont, sat reading late. 
It chanced that in my studies' annual round, 
I was that season passing, page by page, 
Down dark Tertullian's tidal eloquence. 
That night I listened as he thundered on 
In awful intonations, till he broke 
Forth in fierce joy exulting o'er his foes, 



240 LIBER AMORIS. 

Whose hell should furnish half his bliss of heaven ; 
" Oh, how shall I admire, laugh, sing and dance, 
When I behold our persecutors melt 
In flames far fiercer than the fires they light 
Against us ! " At those words the tiger touch 
Thrilled my weak blood. I knelt, and veiled my face 
In both my hands, and I prayed earnestly 
' That whatsoe'er I had met- with in the world, 
Love might not leave me/ 

Kneeling still, I paused 
In meditation ere I prayed again. 
And, as I paused, a slumber and a sleep 
Stole o'er me, and forthwith in spirit I stood 
On a low ledge of rock, where at my feet 
A rolling river of blood smote the steep flanks 
Of a wide glen that, like a straight-cut trench, 
Stretched a dark mile before me. On both sides 
Eose two blind walls of bleached and withered cliff, 
Whose ragged tops were dim with clouds that smoked 



LIBER AMORIS. 241 

And smouldered into flame. And far away, 

High in the valley's narrow gate, I spied 

What seemed the well-head whence that river ran, 

A runic altar, whereon stood a youth, 

Immortal in his beauty, with starved face, 

Torn hands, and bleeding feet, and tortured frame, 

From whose rent side distilled a twin-born stream 

Of water and of blood ; which, blent in one, 

Lapsed broadening in its course, till all the glen 

Grew loud, and shook w T ith the swift sanguine waves 

That billowed into crests of hissing fire 

Eound a huge galley, with strong iron sides 

Eust-brown, and scarred with flame and splashed 

with blood. 
From the tall stern there sloped a cross that steered 
With its black transverse beam, and from the stem 
A hopeless anchor tempted from below 
The hope of drowning hands that clutched in vain. 
On the high deck a multitude looked forth 
And sang, "Hosanna! praise the Saviour-God 

16 



242 LIBER AMORIS. 

Who bears us on these tides that drown the world ! " 
Then with small crosses, like that greater cross 
Which swayed them from behind, they stooped and 

struck 
And thrust off those who clung to stern and stem, 
Saying, " Ye are not of us ; get you hence 
Down to your nether deep ; " and so steered on 
To where the racing river-cataracts 
Drew to a deathly smoothness, arched, and fell, 
Thundering, through fiery foam whose mists w T rithed up 
In crimson globy clouds of quivering spray. 
But ere that galley reached the gulfs dread verge, 
Or passed me by, with a swift wheel to the right 
It steered for the opposite shore, and entered safe 
A crystal offshoot of the o'erflowing stream, 
And gliding down the stillness, moored in peace. 

But now I turned and looked the second time 
Up the death-valley from my sentinel rock. 
Oh, then my heart was torn 'twixt pity and rage, 



LIBER AMORIS. 243 

Till pity grew the stronger, as I saw 

How there was none to rescue, no, not one, 

From either brink or from the heaven above. 

Once, twice, and thrice I cried, and stretched my hands 

Downward ; but all in vain. There, as a sea 

Thick-strewn with shipwrecked men, the fire-flood 

rolled, 
And one cried to another, and sought to save 
That other, and not himself. Some strained and strove 
With desperate oarage of their hands and feet 
Against the steep surge ruining from above ; 
Some caught at spires of hanging rock ; and some 
Thrashed with arm-flails a path through the hot surf 
Toward the stream's crystal outlet, then sank back, 
Crying, " false God, redeemer named in vain, 
Thou either wilt not, or thou canst not save 
To the uttermost the souls that call on thee." 
So passed they, one and all, down toward the gulf, — 
Old men's white-flowering temples, and the heads 
Of fair-haired girls, like mists of maiden gold, 



244 LIBER AMORIS. 

And women's white round arms holding aloft 
Their baby-blossoms wet with parting tears. 
Then came a hush, then a shrill sound of wail, 
As from a ship that sinks in a dark sea 
When all are lost ; with that a reddening mist 
Upsteamed through all the valley, and on mine ear 
Sank the slow-lessening cries of wild farewell. 

I woke; — if that were waking which prolonged 
Some minutes more those lamentable cries 
That tingled in mine ears and moved my soul 
With love-begetting pity. Faint I woke, — 
If that in sooth were waking which but hid 
From these dimmed, horror-stricken eyes what thou 
And I and thousands count not as a dream, 
But as a shadow of the eternal truth. 
Like one breath-laboring through the airless dusk 
Of some foul prison-house, T rose in haste, 
And flinging wide yon leaded window-panes, 
I drank the wholesome air of the sweet night, 



LIBER AMORIS. 245 

And saw the stars, and listened to the breath 
And voices of the sky's deep tenderness, 
And felt once more those gentle Presences 
That lead forth all things toward eternal good 
Both day and night. And something said to me ; 
" Thy dream is but a nightmare of the night, 
The brief penumbra of thy passing pain 
Thrown outward from thyself on these bright worlds, 
The smoke of smothered vengeance in thy soul, 
Which proves thy love imperfect. Perfect love 
Shows nothing but a pure and smokeless fire." 
So thought I, standing by the casement there. 
And the clouds opened wider for the stars, 
In answer to my thoughts. But still that cry, 
That late-heard lamentable cry returned, 
Ascending, so it seemed, to where I stood, 
Out of those depths of darkness down beneath. 
Downward I bent me, peering through the gloom, 
Yet nothing could I see. Still, still the sound 
Grew upward. Oh, my Basil, there are cries, 



246 LIBER AMORIS. 

That pierce like arrows from a giant's hand ! 

But what more piercing than a helpless child's ? 

Ay, Basil, as I gazed upon the sky 

Listening, meseemed that every star was then 

A sword's-point passing through me. " Oh, what child, 

What child art thou that weepest in the night, 

With none to hear thee ? Say, what are those prayers 

Half-lost in thy lone crying ? " Then no more ; 

But quick-descending, I drew back the bolts 

And dropt the chain and opened wide our door, 

And with close-lifted lantern to her face, 

I saw what I had heard. A child she was ; 

For afterward I learnt she had not seen 

Seven mortal years twice-numbered, yet her face 

Wore all the weariness and watchful weight 

Of the babe-nursing mother. Her thin cheek 

Was sallow as the last October leaf, 

Whose love hangs o'er the else-deserted stream. 

The paly-purple bloom was on her eyes 

That clothes the ungathered berries of the hill, 



LIBER AMORIS. 247 

And her blown locks in motion and in hue 

Were as the chaff that flees the thresher's hand. 

I started back, for sure methought I saw 

Her, my lost angel, whom I never name 

Save in my prayers to God, and now to thee. 

But she with half-articulate w T ords came near, 

Crying and saying ; " father, for Christ's love 

Come thou, or send with me some holy man, 

To hear a last shrift ; my lost father lies 

At point of death." And I ; " I go with thee, 

My child." Then summoning no one, I went forth. 

Down this high rock's white silentness we stept, 

Both pale and silent, through the tost white heaps 

Of the thick thwarting snowdrifts, till w^e reached 

The storm-worn hostel of the Fleur de Lys, 

Hard by Saint Etienne's gate. Thou knowest, Basil, 

Our inn's chief chamber, where the people say 

Count Raymond's three fair daughters slept one night, 

Leaving the room still fair with Love's own dreams. 

In a blue tabernacle sprent with stars, 



248 LIBER AMORIS. 

Set in the panelled wall, the Virgin stands 

White-robed, and the warm Babe clings close to her, 

The Eose of Sharon cradled on her arm, 

The Lily of the Valley. Her sweet look 

Seems always rapt upon the sleeper's face 

Over against her, watching night and morn 

His sleeping and his waking. On that bed, 

Half sunken in a sleepless sleep, lay one 

Whose frame the north-wind might have hewn this 



"&" 



night 
Out of yon granite hills. As they that come 
By chance upon some giant's buried bones 
Will pause and make conjecture, — who he was, 
When and where lived he, what the deeds he did, 
What heart was that which beat against those ribs P 
What fire-thoughts flew or fluttered in that skull, 
What kisses and what love-lore warmed awhile 
Those unfleshed lips unloved, and who was she 
Whose eyes were once to his as light to life ; 
With many a like surmise, wherewith the heart 



LIBER AMORIS. 249 

Goes feeling outward toward the hearts unknown 

Of those far from us, whether in space or time, — 

I gazed upon that shell of shrunken strength, 

I gazed upon those sleeping lips and lids, 

Waiting till they should wake. Meanwhile I learned 

From her who brought me thither, how her sire 

In his last voyage from the Norway shore, 

The shore of her nativity and his home, 

Being sore storm-bested in Normandy, 

Had left his ship, and hastening overland 

To a near southern port, would fain have sailed 

For Eoine, that he might win, if God so willed, 

Saint Peter's absolution and the boon 

Of apostolic peace before he died. 

More she had uttered ; but her father then, 
Moaning and muttering in his troubled sleep, 
Seemed waking some old warfare with himself, 
The deadly duel of divided thoughts. 
For now his voice was full of piteous plaint, 



250 LIBER AMORIS. 

Like one who, pleading at his judge's feet, 

Would stay the coming death-doom. Now again 

He was that judge high-raised above himself, 

Passing stern sentence, brooking no delay. 

Then with spent breath his fast-plied fingers pulled 

The coverlet, as though he tried to pluck 

Some few last flowers from the lost field of life, 

As one that would stay longer. And with that, 

His eyes he opened wide and turned on mine. 

Forthwith I answered to his looks and said ; 

iC Fair Sir, if any balm to thy heart's wound, 

If any solace to a secret grief, 

I have brought hither, lo, it is all thine, 

Even to the pouring forth of mine own soul.' > 

And he made answer in rough organ-tones, 

As though the crashing seas he late had sailed 

Still spake in his deep accents ; " I had hoped 

To bow these knees ere~ now beneath the feet 

Of Christ's great Yicar, and to hear his lips 

Pronounce the final pardon. But what then ? 



LIBER AMORIS. 251 

What words did ever fan the fireless flax 

To living flame again ? I need not thee, 

Nor any of thy sort, save for such balm 

As this my child may afterward enjoy 

From thought of this thy coming here to-night." 

Whereto I made reply, imploring him 

To make a last confession of his sin, 

Whatever it might be ; I was as God, 

To bring him there the promise of God's peace. 

He answered ; " For the unpardonable sin 

There is no pardon : that thou knowest well." 

And then he fetched a heavy sigh, that spake 
A heart o'erlabored with its ghostly pangs ; 
And his lost soul seemed as a sinking bark 
That heaves in anguish, toiling toward the shore. 
I, waiting till the spasm had spent its force, 
Sought, in the calm that followed, how I might 
Come near his soul's distress, beseeching him 
To tell me his offence ; " And where is he," 



252 LIBER AMORIS. 

Said I, "whose widest wanderings ever found 
A path that passed beyond the rounding rim 
Of the great Mercy throned above us all ? " 
To which the man made answer ; " Murder done, 
And done as this hand did it, may not kneel 
Before life-giving God, or sue his grace, 
But waits for ever in the outer dark, 
Unpenanced and unpardoned. Not those drops 
Outsweated by the brow of Christ, or drawn 
From his spear- wounded heart, can still the voice 
Of that pure blood wherewith I have stained this 
earth." 

He ceased, and soon his thoughts were lost again 
In audible communion with himself ; 
" Oh, if it had been ye, mine enemies, 
Whose hearts my slaughtering sword had riven in 

twain, 
There had been hope. Oh, had it been but ye, 
Ye who so oft have struck me in the strife 



LIBER AMORTS. 253 

And shouldering madness of the market-place, 

Ye who have overreached and undermined 

And dug about me, compassing my fall, 

Ye who have strewn my prosperous path with stones, 

"Who scorpion-like have fastened on the heel 

That passing spurned or dazzled you ; or ye, 

Ye who could mock me when the tender flowers 

Of home dropt into darkness one by one, 

And all my wealth, as golden quicksands, failed 

And melted fast beneath my sinking steps, 

As low and lower I sank toward my despair, — 

Oh, if it had been ye at whose curs'd lives 

That sword of mine had thrust, there had been room 

For hope of pardon ; for w here deep-sown wrongs 

Spring up toward heaven in harvests of revenge, 

And hate engenders hate, there still is hope 

That God may light the soul's repentant showers 

With some faint rainbow of absolving grace. 

But it was none of these whom then I smote, 

Then in the self-made madness of my soul; 



254 LIBER AMORIS. 

But it was thou, my friend, my foremost friend, 

Thou for whose heart I pledged a brother's heart, 

And for a brothers won a lover's love, 

Who didst me never a wrong, but wert as he 

Of whose love long ago one weeping sang 

And said ; ' Thy love to me was wonderful, 

Passing sweet woman's love.' Ev'n him I slew, — 

And all for nothing, save some flying gleams 

Of power and place and a few grains of gold, 

And such accursfed creeds as lead poor men 

To deem they render service to high God, 

To Christ, and holy Church, by deeds like mine ! 

Oh, lost, lost, lost beyond all hope is he 

Who parts with Love as lodestar of his life ! 

Who craves no Knowledge save what leads to power! 

Who, when he can not quench the light without, 

Then frames an inner darkness for his soul, 

That he may freely do whate'er he will, 

Unchastened by self-blame ! O'er such there falls 

The night to which no daylight ever dawns." 



LIBER AMORIS. 255 

I said within me ; ' Could I now unweave 
This one tyrannic woe, and draw his mind 
To break each smaller separate thread in turn, 
I might release him ; as the conqueror once 
Who crossed the impassable river which he clave 
In many a sluicfed stream.' With such intent 
Once more I turned me to that suffering soul, 
And prayed him earnestly, whilst thought and speech, 
Those mint-marks of man's nature, yet remained, 
That he would briefly bring in order forth 
Such thoughts as were the fuel to his pain. 

What, Basil, wouldst thou think if in some mart 
Of foreign folk a stranger held thy sleeve 
And told thee there thy never-uttered love 
And secrets of thy soul ? Wouldst not thou feel 
Like him who, hearing suddenly in the streets 
Some sweet familiar music long unheard, 
Turns in his musings tearfully toward the past ? 
Even so, my Basil, was it then with me, 



256 LIBER AMORIS. 

As there T sat and listened through the night 

To that strange story, his, and also mine, — 

His tale of anguish, and my dream of love. 

Line after line, the picture of my past 

Gleamed through time's mists in many-colored lights, 

Like the rich-windowed West when daylight dies, — 

Those first fresh Paduan mornings ; that sworn faith 

Of the two plighted brothers at the feast 

Where great Apollo sang; that sacrament 

Of fire and bread and sleep which ever binds 

The guest to him who hosts him ; then that oath, 

That talisman and testamental gem 

Of Love's own presence ; last of all, that love 

Which she, the valley rose, had breathed on both, 

Blending all three in one. And then he told 

How he had soon forsaken Love, and sought 

Knowledge,. but Knowledge only that should lead 

To Action, that through these he might attain 

To Power and sovereign sway o'er mortal men ; 

How Love then rose and left him, and went forth 



LIBER AMOEIS. 257 

Weeping, and from that moment life's wide ways 
Grew narrower, darkening on to fields of death; 
How the death-doing deed, which Satan's self 
Had scorned to do, was done in Christ's dear name ; 
How the gold, ravished from the friend he slew, 
Cancelled his exile's curse in the far North 
Whither he fled, and touched with blissful warmth 
And opened for him all the Norway shores 
And arctic isles and treasures of the frost, 
As on through nightless days and dayless nights, 
A trader then, he coursed o'er seas and snows, 
Bound on his perilous paths of merchandise. 
And then he told me how long years went by 
Unblest by love's warm light, till one came near 
Who seemed a spirit sent down to earth from heaven, 
Soft as a meteor of the boreal morn ; 
How in some sort he loved her, looked on her, 
And^felt he needed some one for a home. 
And so he married her, — as thousands more 

Who leave Love's altar, heedless of the truth 

17 



258 LIBEE AMOBIS. 

That Nature made not woman for the man, 

But man for woman. So he brought her home, 

Holding that God framed woman but for this, — 

To wed and weave and work and bring forth babes 

And serve the one whom marriage makes her lord. 

Soon was all labor and but little love ; 

And she, soft-framed for love, and seeking such, 

Pined inwardly with uncomplaining looks. 

And every new-born boy, of six that came, 

Grew as the pale flowers in a sunless place 

Which droop for want of warmth and wooing winds 

And kisses of the sun ; till one by one 

They died, and after many years there came 

This last, a daughter, whom her mother mamed 

Una, — " My only one," she used to say, 

" My one, my only one, my last one left 

Of all my little love-created flowers, 

My death-belated lambs who lost their way 

Down the dim pastures where T soon shall come." 

And so she pined for lack of love, and died. 



LIBER AMOEIS. 259 

And when she died, above her grave soon sprang 

The black and bitter fruit of loveless years. 

Not the fruit only was he called to taste, 

But a dark death-wine pressed from out that fruit 

Such as he drained to its last bitter lees. 

For his love-lacking usage of his kin 

Passed out into the world, and now returned 

To bring him Love's revenges, and to prove 

That ofttimes lack-love is the heir of hate. 

So what he first had meted out to men, 

Men measured now to him. Oh, how they danced 

Over his downfall when at last it came ! 

But he, as a lone lion stands at bay, 

Stood there defiant, nor to man or God 

Looked he for love or mercy in his need. 

Had he not met the justice that he gave ? 

Who shows not mercy, let him look for none. 

For pity or pardon why look up to God ? 

Is not God always just so much to man 

As men are to each other ? " Yet for her, 



260 LIBER AMORIS. 

For her dear sak:e," he said, "am I now come 
Thus far toward Rome ; for I had hoped to hear 
The last absolving word from God's high priest, 
And haply find some holy haven there 
For my poor homeless Una. Mother-like, 
Though but in thought a child, how has she watched 
My every step, look, breath, and brought me hither, 
Her heart a soaring pillar of gentle fire, 
Her speech my hourly manna. One by one, 
Dire need has taken from our sorrowing sight 
Trinket and treasured symbol of past years, — 
Yea, such necessity three days ago 
Stripped the last sun-drops from yon jewelled hilt. 
But she, though hope may pass, and all things fail, 
Yet fails she never. Oh, God grant thee, child, 
His peace, — the peace that never can be mine ! " 

With claspt hands, claspt yet closer to my breast, 
As though I would gird-in this bursting frame, 
I listened ; then my eyes declining slow 



LIBER AMORIS. 261 

From the carved ceiling to the floor, I marked 

The unjewelled sword that hung against the wall, 

My father's parting gift. Then mightily 

I cried in silence to the silent God, 

Asking that I might someway save this soul 

Through Love's own power ; but first that I myself 

Might rise and touch and taste the perfect gift 

Of Love in mine own spirit. Turning round, 

I looked upon his face. I knew him then, 

I saw him as he was. Great Death stood near, 

And all things now seemed nothing. Love alone 

Eemained. Upraising slow his dying hand, 

"This hand," he cried, "this curs' d hand took his life ! 

Come, Death, and stamp these fingers into dust . . . 

Their deed can never die. My soul is lost, — 

Oh, lost, for ever lost ! " And the hand fell ; 

And falling, lo, its finger-gem outflashed 

A light that spake the present talisman 

Of Love, who outlives all things ; and I thought ; 

' Who keeps Love's symbols, Love shall keep him still.' 



262 LIBER AMOBIS. 

Then, drawing nearer to his side, I said ; 
" It had been well if this thy failing strength 
Could have sustained thee till thine ears had heard 
The pardon thou desiredst. But behold, 
That door is shut. Are all doors therefore closed ? 
Look up; for though all lights on earth go out, 
The stars are overhead. Why may not I, 
I who am come as courier of high Love, 
Bring thee the sentence which thy soul would hear ? 
Upon this head of mine and on this heart 
Have not the ordaining hands been long since laid ? 
I also may absolve thee." Whereto he ; 
" I need nor thee, nor any of thy kind, 
To tell me that, which a far holier voice 
Than thine or any priest's on earth must breathe 
In this mine ear." "And wdiose," I said, " whose voice 
Is holier than that God's whose voice I am, — 
Whose mouthpiece are all those that speak the 

truth?" 
"Nay, nay," he answered sternly ; "one alone 



LIBER AMORIS. 263 

Can speak the pardon, — he whose voice and face 

Are far from where I speak, and farther yet 

From the drear night whereto I soon descend, 

My last abode for ever." " Oh, what if he," 

I answered, " what if he should now return 

From the bright isles beyond the mists of death 

To tell thee that his only woe is this, 

That thou dost travail with a w T eary load, 

Which he w^ould die again to lift from thee, — 

Say, wouldst thou then receive the pardoning word, 

And be at rest, and go this night to sleep 

In the deep peace that broods above the stars ?" 

And he, with that cold smile incredulous 

Which brought him back yet clearer than before ; 

" The dead return not ever ; and if he could, 

He whom I slew, — of this I am full sure, 

That violated love, though strong as his, 

Could not but start aghast and shrink aw T ay 

Far from the presence of a soul like mine." 

" Listen," I said ; " I bring thee news from heaven. 



264 LIBER AMORIS. 

He whom that hand of thine once felled to the 

earth, 
Restored in spirit is waiting at thy side 
To tell thee thou art pardoned ; he is here. 
Dost see him by thy bed ? " Then he to me ; 
" Now verily thou liest, thou false priest. 
Hence, hence ! Go crave that pardon from thy God 
Which thou wouldst palm on me ! " " Ev'n while we 

speak," 
I answered, " thou mayst see his pale grey shade 
Beside thy couch, ay, near enough to touch 
That hand, once raised against him, which yet wears 
The testament and talisman he gave thee. 
Himself now speaks to thee. Hearst not his voice, 
Ev'n now pronouncing pardon ? " And the man, 
With slow void looks cast round him to the right, 
Turned his eyes farther away from where I sat, 
Answering, " I hear no voice on earth but thine 
Pronouncing pardon." " Hearing mine," said I, 
" Thou hearest Dorian's voice ; for I am he." 



LIBER AMOBIS. 265 

What followed those last words, oh, who can tell ? 
With one wild cry he hurled him from that bed 
And claspt my knees, and was as one disarmed 
In mortal fight who holds his enemy's feet 
And looks entreaties for his life, and hangs 
'Twixt love and terror, gratitude and awe. 
So Eupert held my knees, like one who clings 
To what he fears, and shrinks from what he loves. 
And there he knelt, nor any word he spake 
But " Dorian! Dorian ! " clinging close to me. 

Then silence passed, and poured itself in showers 
Of a most healing grief ; and he and I 
Embraced and wept, and those around us wept. 

Oh, there are moments in man's mortal years 
When for an instant that which long has lain 
Beyond our reach is on a sudden found 
In things of smallest compass, and we hold 
The unbounded shut in one small minute's space, 



266 LIBER AMORIS. 

And worlds within the hollow of our hand, — 

A world of music in one word of love, 

A world of love in one quick wordless look, 

A world of thought in one translucent phrase, 

A world of memory in one mournful chord, 

A world of sorrow in one little song. 

Such moments are man's holiest, — the divine 

And first-sown seeds of Love's eternity. 

And such were those last moments when I sat 

Beside my long-lost friend, soft-laid again 

In what no longer was his lair of death, 

But now his bed of glory. Life, all life, 

Its terrors and its tumults and its tears, 

Its hopes, its agonies and its ecstasies, 

Its nights of sorrow and its dawns of joy, 

Its visionary raptures and its dull, 

Death-darkened hours, its longings, losses, gains, 

Curses and cries and lamentations loud, 

Sins, frenzies, and despairs, the monstrous births 

Of thought and action groping for the light, 



LIBER AMORIS. 267 

The false, the true, the night's red underworld 

Of nadir darkness, and the zenith stars 

Lost in their spheral music beating time 

To every heart that hates or loves or mourns, — 

These now were one, and I was one with these, 

And these with me through Love's transfusing power 

That passed upon me then. There as we sat, — 

My brother and I, my brother made anew, 

My brother thrice made mine, for ever mine, 

Made one and equal with me through Love's might, — 

We felt all space was ours, all time was ours ; 

We were as those that reign above the worlds ; 

And in our souls we saw the light round which 

All multiformal things grow uniform, 

The many sing as one. And we were one, 

Calm-seated in the heaven that overflows 

With the world's music of perpetual peace. 

Then, as the night grew darker toward the morn, 
And on from year to year our thoughts flew back, 



268 LIBER AMORIS. 

As birds from land to land, and his brief speech 
Came brief and briefer with his sinking strength, 
He oftentimes would turn to me and say ; 
" Sweet brother, if an angel sent from God 
Had brought me word, I scarce had then believed 
That thou couldst thus forgive, or I receive 
What I disdained to take, as undeserved. 
But now, behold, I take, and take with love 
Grown larger, what thou givest, and ask but Heaven 
And Heaven's long summer to bring forth to thee 
My riper love for recompense." 

And I; 
" Though I had given thee all things, yet must Love 
Still count me as thy debtor whilst I live. 
Live, and owe nothing ! What does Love not owe ? 
Poor bankrupt Love, who would, but can not pay 
For each day's feast, nay, hath not wherewithal 
To fee the servitors of his hourly wine, 
So pawns his diadem, and at last himself, 



LIBER AMORIS. 269 

And hugs the debtor's manacle, and so reigns, 

A splendid spendthrift and a beggar king. 

But he who loves not, owes not anything. 

So saith he to his thoughts, w^hich slowly turn 

Deathward, and straight he dies within himself, 

Disfranchised from the commonwealth of worlds. 

And such, sweet Eupert, is the crowning truth 

Which thou and this rememberable night 

Have brought me. Now I know that ev'n when Love 

Has lavished all things from his treasury, 

Yet hath he ever something to bestow. 

Forgiveness is Love's gift when nought remains 

For even Love to give. Oh, I have known 

Full many who, like Gods, shower on the world 

Their largess ; yet if thou shalt search their heart 

Forgiveness is that last long-hoarded coin 

Which they withhold, though giving all besides. 

Till we have reached far down and brought up this 

Out of that secret coffer kept for self, 

We love not as He loves who leads the stars. 



270 LIBER AMORIS. 

Nay, but I know not if the God unseen 

Makes not this thing a part of those fine bonds 

Whereby He binds us closer to Himself, 

Loving not only for the gifts He gives, 

But for the sins He pardons. dear heart, 

'Fore God I speak the truth ; I love thee more 

For that which I forgive, than if such things 

Had never been. I owe thee more, dear Eupert, 

Than this my pardon or absolving word 

Can e'er repay. Through thee, in part through thee, 

My love has been made perfect." 

Hearing this, 
With either hand in Una's and in mine, 
He raised his eyes toward heaven, and answering said; 
" Love, thou hast conquered. At thy feet I lie. 
Now lift me from the dust into thy throne 
Of pure unpassing peace. I left thy light, 
I broke thy covenant and forsook thy ways, 
I sinned, I strayed from thee, I turned aside 



LIBER AMORIS. 271 

From following thy broad footprints, I pursued 
But Knowledge and high Action and the paths 
That lead to Power supreme. My life is passed, — 
A broken plan, a failure, a defeat. 
But by thy might, Love, I rise again, 
Reconquering what I lost, — a realm within, 
And this dear hand and presence, and a heart 
That never left thy light. Two parted streams, 
Re-mingling, now we move toward thy deep sea. 
The memory of thy powder which followed me, 
The hope that, if I kept this charmful spell 
To life's last day, I might at last be saved, 
The spell fast bound upon this sinning hand, 
Were thine, and now have brought me back to thee." 

Thus as I sat beside him, soul with soul, 
Mingling in love and silence, I did feel 
As I have felt full oft at eventide 
When summer wanes, and autumn, as a king, 
Waits on the dreaming threshold of the woods 



272 LIBER AMORIS. 

To robe himself in pomp of saddest gold, 

And those two lights, disparted for a day, 

Meet for one short calm hour and mix their beams ; 

Till the sun saith, ' Thy softer might prevails/ 

And solar strength dies out in lunar love, 

With Love's one star to bless them. 

So he passed 
Out of these shadows to the perfect light ; 
And when he passed, we could not think it death, 
So gentle and so lovely was his sleep. 

Long o'er the father's face the daughter wept, 
Close-couching to his side, and whispering him 
Such secret love-words as a maiden's breath 
Sighs in her lover's ear when none are nigh. 
And then she came to me, and held and kissed 
My hands, and laid her head upon my knees, 
And spake her sorrow. "Thou art all I have," 
She said. " Oh. nearer now than flesh and blood, 



LIBER AMORIS. 273 

And henceforth as my father ! " Soon we rose ; 
And, with her arm en wound with mine, we passed 
Slow through the sleeping streets, until we reached 
The mansion of the sisters of Saint Claire, 
Whose door fell back on ready noiseless hinge, 
Turning the outer darkness into light. 
And in that light my new child found a home. 

But look, my Basil, how yon window's width, 
Which waits for the first kiss of coming day, 
Shows its faint outline clear, and yet more clear, 
As the black marble of the solid dark 
Breaks in evanishing veins of white and grey. 
A stillness comes ; the world in worship kneels, 
And on its breathless prayer all-breathless falls 
The daybreak's benediction. Let me taste 
This sacrament of silence, brief, but sweet, 
And listen what my last dawn sings to me. 

18 



DAWN-SONG. 



DAWN-SONG. 



Hark, through the dark, far away, 
Clarion-voiced as a watchman's warning, 

Calls the loud bird of day 
On Mother Night for the birth of Morning ; 

And the East, that deathlike lay, 

Shakes his raven locks into grey, 
Ere they bloom into golden flowers inurning 
The sun's risen ray. 

And the daybreak's fountain is stirred 
In streaks that curdle to silver whiteness, 

And the morn's creating word 
Warms the heart of the dark to dreams of lightness. 

From the hill-crests bleak and bared 

Ebbs the night like a hope deferred, 
And my formless form through its darkling brightness 
Comes felt but unheard. 



278 " LIBER AMOBIS. 

Pure as the wreathen dews 
Upshowered through the air with might and motion, 

When a gold-plumed eagle unmews 
His sea-sprayed wings o'er the dawn-red ocean, — 

I soar, and my wan cheek woos 

The roses that morning strews, 
Till my face, as a nun's in her rapt devotion, 
Glows warm with life's hues. 

Through hollows, o'er heights afar, 
The ghosts of grey fears in their flight are taken. 

Star fading fast upon star, 
As leaves from the forest of heaven are shaken, 

And the Day-God leads with his car 

All shapes that beautiful are, 
As he heaves to the hymn, which his harpstrings waken, 
His hall's cloudy bar. 

Over roses in Eden blown, 
The amber spoke of the smooth wheel flashes, 

Upbearing his chariot-throne, 
And the day's red wine on my feet he dashes 

From his cup bright with beryl stone, 

Till I burn from sandal to zone, 



LIBER AMORIS.. 279 

And from under my feet, as sparks from their ashes. 
My da wnli glit is strown. 

Oh, think how in life's young dawn 
Such lights were the robes that I came arrayed in, 

When close in Love's bower withdrawn 
Thy heart wooed the rosebud heart of a maiden, 

Till thy looks turned pale and wan 

Toward my light, w T here it faintly shone, 
And she sighed to thee sad in her soul love-laden ; 
" Why wilt thou be gone ? 

" Is it day ? Or the slow up-rise 
Of the Moon that fans the white dawn above her ? 

Or Night with her mj^riad eyes 
To shine on the love-bound feet of the lover ? 

Or a lonely meteor that flies 

From its homeless immensities ? 
Or the last low smile on the clouds that cover 
The Sun where he lies ? " 

Look forth, O man ! it is day. 
Thy tears w T ere the seed for the light thou reapest, 



280 LIBER AMORIS. 

For just before morning's ray 
The flood of the dark flows alway the deepest. 

Arise ! Oh, wherefore delay ? 

Why cleaveth thy soul to the clay ? 
Awake, arouse thee, thou that sleepest ! — 
Arise, come away. 

Where now is that bower whose leaves 
Once thrilled with the song of thy love-bird singing ? 

Why dwell in a nest that unweaves 
All hues of thy faith and fancy's bringing ? 

No shelter, no song it now gives 

But the crash as of dry dead leaves, 
While beneath bare boughs, with their dark sighs ringing, 
Thy soul droops and grieves. 

Why stay where the nightly fear 
Still whispers thee close with its awful, Whither ? 

Why tarry while year after year 
Unclothes thy house for the winter's weather ? 

While each star seems a falling tear 

For a star just laid on its bier, 
And the earth grows old, and the skies they wither, — 
Why tarriest thou here ? 






LIBER AMORIS. 281 

And thy world becomes less thine own, 
And thou, as a traveller lost, belated, 

Hearest naught but the night-wind's moan, 
Where once at thine ear every love-sound waited ; 

And thy voice learneth griefs own tone, 

And thou gropest with tears and groan 
Through the gathering dark for the light uncreated, — 
Alone, all alone. 

Here the truths which men sought to prove 
Drop sweet to the lips in their full revealing 

From the boughs of Life's Tree, which move 
Through shadow of dreams into whispers of healing, 

And the Beauty toward which they strove 

Fills my world and the shapes thereof, 
And the stars are its thoughts, and the moon is its feeling, 
And the heaven is its love. 



And here is thy life's lost prize 
In the bowers whose emerald shades enshrine her 5 

And oft as for thee she sighs, 
Her lute's low plaint sinks faint in its minor, 

And the April flows from those eyes 

Which are doors into Paradise, 



282 LIBER A3I0EIS. 

Where, behind my dawn, like a dawn diviner, 
Thy dear Lady lies. 

Yea, behind this daybreak move 
The flowering dawn of a rich to-morrow 

And hours thou dreamest not of, 
Whose feet, set free from their wintering furrow, 

Shall lead, with light from above, 

To thy soul, as its brooding dove, 
Thy Lady of Comfort, thy Lady of Sorrow, 
Thy Lady of Love. 

Come hither ; why wouldst thou stay, 
These shores of the rose and the myrtle scorning ? 

Come hither ; wherefore delay 
To take Life's crown for thy soul's adorning ? 

Oh, hear what my dawn-voices say ! 

Oh, hear us, the children of Day, 
Whose feet are the light, and whose eyes are the morning ! 
Come away, come away ! 



PART FOUR. 



IV. 



Dawn, in whose smile the daystar only is left 
Of all the fading star-flowers of Night's crown, 
Grey borderer on the bounds of Truth and Dream, — 
Dreams pure as truths, and truths as fair as dreams, — 
How oft have I from this high convent tower 
Watched thee advance as though thou wert God's self, 
No divine Being as men oft misname him, 
But the perpetual divine Becoming, — 
Opening, like Life's illimitable flower, 
Light into larger light along these skies, 
Whilst from these skies, that loomed like misted hills, 
Morn broke in voiceless cataracts of white light 
Earthward, and slow the new-made earth came forth 



286 LIBER A3I0BIS. 

Fresh from the lifted signet-ring of Night. 
Now Love's one star with self-surrendering love 
Fades as an unfed lamp and dies in day. 
Dear is the morning light of youth, and dear 
The scarce articulate speech of coining spring, 
And dear the firstborn glances that reveal 
A maiden's long-sought sweetness. Dear as these, 
As youth and spring and love, was thy first light 
That broke around me on that Christmas morn, 
When, once more seated by this fading fire, 
I found myself enfolded in such thoughts 
As Memory gives to Love to keep Love warm. 
The night had passed, and something said within ; 
' The morning, lo, the morning is at hand.' 
I could not pray. Why ask for anything 
When everything in heaven and earth w^as mine, 
And I had seen her face and felt her love, — 
Her face and love, so like, so near to hers 
Who was my star in Paradise ? Now, Lord, 
Speak but the word, and bid me pass in peace. 



LIBER AMORIS. 287 

And then, but not till then, I understood 
Why my unanswered prayer so long had knocked 
At every gate of God's death-chartered city, 
Praying that He would summon from among 
Those golden-tressfed Dreams that wait on Sleep 
Some clear-eyed Vision, child of Night or Day, 
To lead me till I came beneath the trees 
Where my lost Lady sits beside the well 
In whose pure deeps the pure may look on God. 
Oh, w r hy in dreams and trances had mine eyes 
Not seen my heart's desire ? Why had my soul 
Thus vainly ventured heavenward ? Love is sight ; 
'T is only Love that sees. But perfect Love 
Is perfect vision, seeing into God. 

Thus as I sat before this dying hearth 
I thought how many a night with rush of wing 
My spirit had risen at the mighty sound 
Of some great sentence read, and I had soared, 
Circling from height to far ethereal height, 



288 LIBER AMORIS. 

Toward highest heaven, blindly beating up 

Into its terrible brightness, seeing naught, 

But hearing only voices in deep talk, 

Like trumpets in the thunder. There I failed ; 

For strength to soar gives not the power to see. 

And then I thought of that my hideous dream, 

To which my own heart had unbarred the gates. 

And so I journeyed back by paths of thought 

To that deep source of all our sin and woe, — 

Love's incompleteness. Then I knelt and prayed 

That Love would lead me into larger light ; 

And even if he should lead me to no light, 

But into deeper dark, that I might go, 

Knowing that long ere light or dark were born, 

Love was, and though these perished, still should be. 

While thus I prayed, there passed upon my soul 
What seemed no common sleep, nor ev'n the trance 
Wherein the spirit sees, but looses not 
Its mortal moorings to its mould of dust. 



LIBER AMORTS. 289 

It was no vision, 't was a passing forth 

Of mine own self beyond these bars of flesh 

To where my spirit soon shall make its home. 

For in all dreams whereof I ever told thee, 

Love not being perfect, part of self remained, 

And barred the pathway to what lay beyond. 

But in this last the whole of self went forth. 

Oh, never may I tell thee all I felt, 

Nor what in those brief moments I became ! 

I died ; and in my dying I beheld 
Beside me a fair shadow of myself 
That seemed to wait for me. I saw no more. 
Then headlong through the unfathomable abyss 
I sank, and seemed to sink for evermore, 
Until I faded back, dissolved and lost 
In the outer darkness where life's nothings lie. 
Then in a moment rising from the smoke 
And drift of all that once had borne my name, 
I found me on the brink of a pure flood, 

19 



290 LIBER AMORIS. 

Whose breathless mirror yielded to my gaze 

Myself now clothed upon with form and face 

Of that same shadow I had seen in death, — 

Another self, the same, yet not the same, 

But larger, lovelier, loftier than before. 

Again I stood upon that ledge of rock, 

Now raised to more ethereal altitude, 

And the same valley lengthened out through leagues 

Of light before me as I looked abroad. 

I saw no altar, heard no ruining stream 

Eoar down betwixt the cliff-sides bleached and 

bare ; 
But as a ship's keel sheers to right and left 
The steep smooth surge, so now each wall of rock 
Fell back in billowy greenness, and between 
A river of crystal clearness flowed and wound 
And widened upward to a lake that lay, 
Bound with a circlet of white strand, and strewn 
With blossoming island-bowers. Above them rose 
A mighty Mount, from whose far-folded heights 



LIBER AMORIS. 291 

A dawn behind a slow-increasing dawn 

Seemed always coming, and from out its peaks, 

The home of holiest Gods, strange voices came, 

And murmured mystic words oracular, 

And thunderings and soft lightnings. On its brow 

And shoulders of imperial amethyst 

Lay seven great moonlike stars ; and now they slept, 

Dropping their dreams on men, or now, awake, 

Loosed some new thought in sevenfold music, heard 

Bound all that hillside crossed with silver threads 

Of streams unnumbered. Every thread of sound, 

A sweetly-separate chord, told its own joy 

To its own dell and overhanging bower, 

Or hurried down to join with choral shout 

The multitudinous anthem heard from far. 

But neither by the brink of that clear flood, 
Nor in those island-bowers, nor on that Mount, 
Saw I the visioned face which long I sought 
Sorrowing ; nor yet in stream or tuneful star 



292 LIBER AMOBIS. 

Heard I that voice which, had I lain long dead, 
Yet hearing I had lived. Oh, what to me, 
Oh, Basil, what to any soul that lives, 
Are streams or stars or voices of the world, 
Or dawns of light on light, or tongues of Gods, 
Or gifts of sevenfold strength, or perfect Power, 
Without the presence of the face we love ? 
Even so felt I in that high-visioned hour : 
Without her, morn and noon with all their gold 
Were black as nether night. 

Again I looked 
To left of that great Hill, and there I saw 
A land warm-drenched with sunlight as with wine, 
A land of valleys that withdrew to hear 
Their own idyllic chant of brook and bower ; 
Mounts of .transfiguration, up whose slopes 
The voice of shepherdess and shepherd's reed 
Breathed slow the brooding heart in deep content ; 
Elysian meadows flowered with asphodel 



LIBER AJIOBIS. 293 

And greened with the moist griefs that overflowed 
April's half-open eyes ; and woodland walks 
Warm with the feet of pastoral fantasies. 

But none of these could hold me. Soul and sense 
Still hungering passed them sorrowfully by, 
As to the right I turned where the great Hill 
Sank inward, cape on cape, with lessening shores 
Toward a great sea. On its horizon lay 
A night of wintry clouds and cold blue wreaths 
Now pierced with arrowy splendors of the morn. 
And through the nearer spaces of the sea 
What looked like barks of Ophir went and came, 
Each steered by a calm Dream whom men call Death. 
Some went, light-laden with a slumbering freight 
Of spirits, pale, unchapleted, unclothed, 
And seemed as those who had no country : these 
Sailed out of sight through doors of morn, and went 
Where they must wander for a little space, 
Wearing their robe of dust and mask of tears. 



294 LIBER AMORIS. 

And other barks there were, which, passing these, 

Grew out of distance, growing like a light 

On the sea's verge, where one by one they rose, 

Each a fair-voyaged argo, on whose deck, 

Bright-vestured in the light of their new day, 

Were homeless, home-returning pilgrim souls, 

Ee-orient spirits like fair-stationed Gods, 

That from the dawn's bright gateway sailed and sang, 

Sending before them tidings of their freight 

Of life-balms and love-dedicated spice, 

Which they had sought and brought through perilous 

seas 
From sorrow-laden forelands, drear with loss, 
Black reefs of pain and dolorous shores of death. 

All these, and more I saw; but what I sought 
With tears, T found not, saw not anywhere. 
Then all the beauty faded, all the light 
Grew dark about me, and my spirit waxed 
Heavy with hopeless sorrow. And as a sheep 



LIBEB AMOBIS. 295 

Eeft of her yeanling comes upon a place 
Wherefrom she thought full sure her lost lamb called, 
And coming finds it empty ; so I stood 
And gazed and grieved with grief wellnigh to death, 
Till toward that death which I so late had passed, 
My thoughts went darkening backward. 

Grieving thus, 
I turned to look my last, when straight in front, 
In the green bosom of the Hill, I spied 
A temple pure as the inmost light of heaven, 
That shone with pillared front and sculptures fair, 
Like a white-blossoming star of coming eve. 
Beneath, in loftily-shaded lawns there walked 
All who had loved the highest, all who had loved 
Much, and for Love's sake suffered much, and all 
Who had scorned themselves that they might serve 

dear Love, 
And go where Love should lead them, — Seers divine 
And Sages who had taught us, Poets crowned 



296 LIBER AMORIS. 

With slow calm looks and high thoughts that flowed 

forth 
In full-mouthed music as they spake and moved 
Majestic. O'er them watched a citadel 
White with its temple, named the Beautiful, 
Bloodless in ritual and in memory, 
Save that within its innermost sanctuary 
The names of all who had died for Love's pure sake, 
And chiefly Christ's, our sweet and blessed King, 
Were kept in Love's rich book and blazoned there, 
With act and word and thought, in characters 
Of light, amid art's heavenliest imageries. 
There to the temple, with sweet-fingered lutes, 
Eapt eyes, and hymning voices, moved a band 
Of women ever beautiful and young, 
Bearing in chalices of fine wrought gold 
Spice and sweet wine and amaranthine flowers. 
A steam of precious gums, sighing to heaven 
Immeasurable sweetness, trembled slow 
From off an altar, fed with holy breath 



LIBER AMORIS. 297 

Of low-sung litanies and answering sound 
Of flutes and harps that passioned back their prayer. 
And leading these with prayer-uplifted hands, 
White-stoled and brow-bound with the bud and 

blush 
Of love-warm roses, there I saw her stand, 
The apple of Love's eye, the taintless core 
Of Love's own heart, — ■ my Lady, lost Eoselle. 

She, when the prayer was ended, with a voice 
Which her hand followed, and deep-languaged 

look, 
Sang ; and her sisters ever and anon 
Took the song's burden from her as it fell, 
Sending soft answers back from lip and string, 
Deep intonations, sweetness mixed with awe, 
Like the slow roll of thunder in mountains heard 
Through sultry summer-noons. And thus to me, 
Fair as the light that leads the rising day, 
And turning toward me, sang my morning star. 



298 LIBER AMORIS. 

Here where the violet's eye grows pale for love 

Of the young tree that shrouds her, where the tree 
Yearns all noon for the star half-seen above, — 
We wait for thee. 

Where dreams and visitations wait for flight, 
Where baby soul-buds drop down goldenly, 
To sail Time's wastes and break through birth to light, 
We wait for thee. 

Here suns and moons and great stars, rounding slow, 
Lead us from thought to thought, from sea to sea. 
From life to life man's generations flow r : 
We wait for thee. 

As ocean-drops, updrawn through infinite air, 

Fall on far hillsides, jewels bright to see, 
So rise thy tears, a crown for thee to wear. 
We wait for thee. 

Sayest thou, Earth's life alone is incomplete? 

Or sayest, None sorrow through the world but we ? 
Here too are voids, and here the vacant seat. 
We wait for thee. 



LIBER AMOBIS. 299 

Now thou descendest toward the water's edge, 
Now thy lamp fails, and round thee drearily 
The surf-mists burn from rock and roaring ledge. 
We wait for thee. 

Why tarriest thou ? Why linger the slow wheels 

Of thy soul's chariot ? Wouldst thou not be free 
To taste Love's lips and loose their crimson seals ? 
We wait for thee. 

" I wait for thee." Oh, were not those my words 
To her, my Lady, when I waited once 
And watched for every crescent moon that filled 
Her cup with silver wine of monthly light ? 
" I wait for thee." Oh, there are words, good Basil, 
Words we have spoken on earth, which grow to be 
Songs that shall greet us at the gates of heaven. 
Then sight and hearing failed ; I knew no more. 
A bright cloud rose, the music sank, and I 
Died back into this body I had left 
Here seated senseless by this sinking fire. 
Far other notes now wooed mv waking ear 



300 LIBER AMORIS. 

Than those first sword-like sounds that clave my soul 

Asunder when I started from that dream 

Of darkness, drowned in mists and moans of hell. 

Hard by yon casement as I stood and looked 

Downward upon the dawning streets beneath, 

Uprose the matin melodies and the chant 

Of singing men and maidens, winding slow, 

A rising river of music, sw^eet and deep, 

Till Silence as she lingered on the air 

Forgot that she was silence, and caught up 

The ascending psalm which told that Christ was 

born. 
The air was full of angels. Bastioned gate, 
Turret and rampire, belfry and steep roof, 
Smoked with the golden vapors mystical 
Outstreaming from bright shapes that waited there. 
And all the valley -hollows and the hills 
Above the valleys quickened into light, 
Full-filled with shadowy forms and such sweet sounds 
As never I had heard the like before. 



LIBER AMORIS. 301 

And thou rememberest, Basil, how when lauds 
Were ended, and I entered this same room, 
Thou didst come hither privily, and didst say- 
That some among our brethren fain would know 
Through thee if God had shown me anything, 
By voice or vision, on that Christmas morn. 
" For surely," said they all, " our abbot's face 
Betokeneth something. Hath he seen at dawn 
A vision of God's angels ? If so be, 
He verily wrongs us if lie give us not 
Some little taste of that which the dear Lord 
Has brought in such full measure to his lips." 
And then I answered thee, that when the hour 
Was fully come, I would impart to thee, 
And through thee to my brethren, whatsoe'er 
Might ground them deeper in the peace of God, 
Or build them higher in love. For well thou knowest 
That these our high-built walls o'erflow not ever 
With froth and vapor of vociferous talk, 
The shallow, babbling streams of shallow minds, — 



302 LIBER AMORIS. 

Not when in playful converse we may pace 

These sunny cloisters at the close of day 

And take our sport, nor when the reader leaves 

The lectern and descends unto his place 

And beechwood platter at our midday meal, 

Nor when we ease with interlude of smiles 

Our eyelids journeying through the parchment page 

At morning-tide. Not that our brethren go 

From hour to hour with beastlike muzzled mouths, 

As those who dare not speak lest they should err 

In speaking. Neither sharpen we our tongues 

On the cold whetstone of smooth circling phrase 

To point a ready foil for personal thrusts. 

Our talk has always been of thoughts and things, 

Not oft of others, never of ourselves. 

All through that Christmas morning here I sat 
And heard the festival sounds from street and lane 
Beneath me, and low answers from this hill 
Which drew about its forehead, hour by hour, 



LIBER AMORIS. 303 

Some garland of new song, and fed my heart 

With harmonies unheard, and sat with you, 

Whose names I scarce could whisper to myself, — 

Piupert, Eoselle and Una, — musing oft 

On the last boon and benison sent from God 

Through the dark morning of the day of Christ. 

And as whene'er we see some gift of love, 

The giver and the gift seem always one, 

So through the day did all things grow more dear, 

And all things now seemed love-gifts from a God. 

In the far sweep of backward-looking faith 

I thought I saw, on the fair slopes of heaven, 

Love dying down to one small seed of fire, 

Self-buried in its furrow, where it slept ; 

And then an even-blowing wind of life 

Outf aimed it from the furrow, and it fell 

Deep in a maiden's bosom while she prayed. 

And there it slumbered, fed with silver peace, 

Till from the cloisters of her virgin frame 

One came, and that was Christ, — the travelling tent 



304 LIBER AMORIS. 

For pilgrim Love, who more than once had come 
To earth in such disguise, and still would come 
And die and hide himself and come again. 

And then I thought that He whom we name God 
Was not perhaps some unit of cold thought 
Such as Greek sages gave to Christian saints, 
A primal number, lone, creationless ; 
But now He came to me, as oft before, 
The everlasting Twofold, ever one, 
The man and woman still inseparable. 
And as the absolute can never live 
Without its relative ; as silent space 
Knows nothing, never sees or hears itself 
Without time's measuring music ; as cold form 
Lies blind and blank till color comes with kiss 
And warmth outpoured upon it, such as once 
Elisha poured upon the lifeless child, — 
So God was now no longer unto me 
A lonely masculine might above the worlds, 



LIBER AM0R1S. 305 

But as the man and woman, twofold life, 
Its married Law and Love, and these were one. 
And from their wedded love sprang forth a child, 
Their first-begotten son, whose name was Love, — 
Love their great heir, the lord of life and death, 
The holder of the keys to all we know 
And all the secrets of the unsearchable, 
The chalice-bearer of the worlds' life- wine, 
Bringer of light and steersman of the stars. 

On many a love-hewn highway like to this, 
Half faith, half fancy, such as poets choose, 
I went that Christmas morn, and since have gone. 
But say not, Basil, that I told thee such ; 
For every thought is not for every ear, 
And in a world where weakness needs must be, 
It is the unwise, but not the worst of men, 
Who do the worst ; till one would almost say, 
Old father Satan and his scapegoat sons 
Work far less mischief than the weak of wit. 

20 



306 LIBER AMORIS. 

Basil, my end draws near. Thou sure wilt say, 
' Brother, why bendest thou thy passionate gaze 
Again and yet again thus yearningly 
Toward the fast-fading forms of yesterday ? ' 
J T is sweet. And this, besides, is Nature's law. 
As man fares nearer to the day of death, 
And feels the neighboring splendors of death's light 
That blanch his brows and blind his eyes, she sends 
Her angel, Memory, to turn him round 
And lure his hopeless looks from years to come, 
And wills that he look backward, lest that light 
Should blind him wholly. So with backward looks 
And walking backwards, man goes forth from life. 

And looking back on this brief tract of years, 
This tale told in the night, I now perceive 
What scarce-discernible consistencies 
And little concords mix in one man's life 
To mould it into unity with itself 
And bind its first beginning to its end. 



LIBER AMORIS. 307 

fair blue shield, bedight with crescent moon 

And crumbling stars and planet of the morn, 

Which I uplifted to my comrades' cheer 

In Bomaiin's tiltyard on that day in June ! 

Thy narrow field of blue comes back this night 

Tn yon broad buckler of unbounded sky, 

Which thrice has stooped to greet us with its 

love, 
Thrice lighted and thrice lifted into songs 
Which we have heard in silence. fair Night, 
Now folding up thy star-book, scriptured thick 
With silver signs and parables unsealed 
Of truth which, opening, shall redeem the world ! 
Thy triple changing lights bring back to me 
The three chief mile-marks of my life ; thy songs 
Have led my thoughts from love to loftier love. 
And he, Love's pilgrim, who came first in black 
Through these bright embers, lays aside that black, 
The north- wind's dress of darkness, — he who came 
In grey, and then in white, now comes at last 



308 LIBER AMORIS. 

In Love's completeness, clad in cloth of gold. 
The volume, which I sought but could not find, 
Searching the woodlands all that summer noon, 
Is now come back to me in worth and weight 
Eicher than heretofore ; and what of worth 
Love there has written, I have shown it thee, 
Unclasping and unfolding to thy sight 
All deeds, all words, all thoughts, not such as I, 
But such as Love himself has traced therein. 
For be it known, my brother, that man's heart 
Is the great Book of Love, — the Book of Life, 
The scroll of doom, where each one finds at last 
His sentence, and the immutable decree 
Of life or death, his heaven, or else his hell. 

Brother, I die. Ev'n while I speak I hear 
Along Life's corridors the coming feet, — 
I feel Death's groping fingers, I await 
His rending of the veil of this weak flesh, 
That shall let loose the morning light, while I 



LIBER AMORIS. 309 

Pass far within the holiest place and meet 
My crowned love face to face. 

Look, Basil, look 
On this low hearth-fire, dying as I die ; 
See its last tongue of flame, that slowly spires 
Upward, and seems a monumental light 
Unquenchable, lifting its ensign high 
Above the grey dust of each buried spark. 
Oh, tarry a moment till I take from thee 
A prophesying symbol of the day, 
Whose dawn already whitens through yon East ! 
The Hour is coming — hear ye not her feet 
Falling in sweet sphere-thunder down the stairs 
Of Love's warm sky ? — when this our holy Church 
Shall melt away in ever-widening walls, 
And be for all mankind, and in its place 
A mightier church shall come, whose covenant word 
Shall be the deeds of love. Not Credo then, — 
Amo shall be the password through its gates. 



310 LIBER AMORIS. 

Man shall not ask his brother any more, 

" Believest thou ? " but * Lovest thou ? " till all 

Shall answer at God's altar, " Lord, I love.'* 

For Hope may anchor. Faith may steer, but Love, 

Great Love alone, is captain of the soul. 

But I grow cold. Come nearer, brother Basil ; 
Come, fold me in thine arms, and hold me close, 
And let me take one last look in thine eyes 
And hear thee say ' Farewell ' before I go. 
The flagging spirit of this last weak flame 
Drops lower, and dies along the hearth. And see 
How Day draws forth his ploughshare on the Night, 
Furrowing the dark, and the dun fields of death 
Grow red with broad-sown lights that spring and burst 
In buds of fire, and Morning's passion-flowers 
Unfold through the bright gardens of the Dawn. 
They bow, they tremble to the waking wind, 
Which heaves on high the streaming vapor-drifts, 
And great God comes, the Lord of lights. Afar 



LIBER AMORIS. 311 

On azure floor-work flash his feet of gold. 
A low wind breathes, and with the rising wind 
What voices call me ! Hear'st thou not their song ? 
" We wait for thee, we wait for thee." Again 
I hear them, and my cold veins creep and flow 
Like frozen currents touched with Life's new spring, 
Or new-born streams that tremble for the sea. 
And hark ! above those voices, like a light 
Above the light, I hear her voice, — 't is she, — 
" Aurelius, ho, Aurelius ! " and once more, 
"Aurelius, ho, Aurelius, come away!" 
Quick, brother Basil, hold me ! Haste ! I fall. 
Death — God — Eoselle ! I come, I come, I come ! 



REFERENDA. 



REFERENDA. 



P. 39. Who knows not hoiv the Saabian bugle blew. 

Cf. Dante, Paradiso, iii. 118. 

" Quest' e la luce della gran Gostanza, 
Che del secondo vento di Soave 
Genero il terzo, e 1' ultima possanza." 

P. 79. As yet he loved not. 

Cf. S. Augustine, Confessions, book iii. c. 1. 

" Nondum amabam, et amare amabam. . . . Quaerebam quod ama- 
rein, amans amare. . . . Amare et amari mihi dulce erat." 

P. 120. Tlie Lady of Comfort 

Cf. Gesta Romanorum, Tale lxiii. (Swan's tr. ). 

"The Emperor Vespasian had a daughter called Aglaes, whose love- 
liness was greater than that of all other women. It happened that as 
she stood opposite to him on a certain occasion, he considered her very at- 
tentively, and then addressed her as follows : c My beloved daughter, thy 
beauty merits a loftier title than thou hast yet received. I will change 
thy name ; henceforward, be thou called The Lady of Comfort, in sign 
that whosoever looks upon thee in sorrow may depart in joy.' . . . But a 
certain knight, who dwelt in some remote country, came to the gate of the 
palace, and when she was called, the knight accosted her in these words : 
' Fair damsel, thou hast been called the Lady of Comfort, because every 
one who enters thy presence sorrowful returns contented and happy.' " 



316 REFERENDA. 

P. 134. Roselle. 

Cf. Chaucer, The Court of Love. 

" For all here bewtie stode in Rosiall, 
She seemed lich a thyng celestiall." 

" And softly thanne her coloure gan appeire, 
As rose so rede, throughoute her visage alle, 
Wherefore me thynke it is according here, 
That she of right be cleped Rosyall." 

"And eke my lady Rosyall the shene, 
Which hath in comforte set myne harte, I wene." 

P. 159. Already France 

Has raised the Cross against them. 
Cf. Guizot, History of France, chap, xviii. "The King- 
ship in France." Michelet, History of France, chap. vii. 

P. 240. Oh, how shall I admire, laugh, sing, and dance. 
Cf. Tertullian, De Spectaculis, c. xxx. 

" Quale autem spectaculum in proximo est adventus Domini ! . . . 
Quae tunc spectaculi latitudo ! Quid admirer ? quid rideam ? Ubi gau- 
deam, ubi exsultem, spectans tot ac tantos reges . . . item praesides, 
persecutores dominici nominis, ssevioribus quam ipsi contra christianos 
ssevierunt, flammis insultantibus liquescentes ? " 



Aug. 15, 1885. 
Nov. 17, 1886. 



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